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| "Sultan's Prize" by Dawn Star Wood |
Back
in November I was sent a message by a woman named Leslie, a member of
the Amador County Artist Association, letting me know that she and
another member of the art group had seen my painting Sultan's Prize
at last year's KVIE Art Auction Preview Gala. As she describes to me
how fascinated they were of my work, I was surprised when she asks me
if I wouldn't mind speaking and doing a demonstration of my work at
one of their monthly meetings for 2013. Thinking things over, I
really wasn't sure what I should do since I have never explained to a
group of people how I paint and in all honesty public speaking has
never been one of my strengths. After nearly an entire day of
conflicted feelings and uncertainty, I emailed Leslie back and said
that I would do it with the thought in the back of my mind that I
really had nothing to loose.
After
months of email correspondence between the two of us and my
surprisingly increased work load for this year, we settled that I
would be the guest artist for the month of April. With that hurdle
jumped, I found myself having a new dilemma: What in the world was I
going as a painting? Leslie had suggested doing another peacock but I
really didn't want to do another piece of the flamboyant birds. After
bouncing ideas around, I decided on showing how I do the reflective
surfaces of vehicles. I think it was either in a moment of madness or
perhaps brilliance, I went through my folder of classic vehicle photo
references that I have on one of my hard drives and spent an hour
scrolling through each picture I had saved to it to find the right
picture. The winner? A photo titled Autobahnkurier by Dennis Matthies
of Mechanicman.deviantart.com (Germany) who is a member of a club I'm
in on dA that focuses on classic cars. According to Dennis, the photo
was taken at the Classic Gala Schwetzingenn and states:
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| "Autobahnkurier" by Mechanicman |
The
Isdera Autobahnkurier 116i, at the Classic Gala Schwetzingen
The
beginnings of the project date back to the year 1984 the
Autobahnkurier was persented in 2006 and is powered by two
Mercedes-Benz V8 engines - one for each axle - from the W126-500SE.
Only
this one car were built which also uses some VW Beetle parts (doors
and roof).
The
reason why I chose it is because I had so many people the last couple
of years ask me how I paint cars. I also wanted to work on a vehicle
that wasn't blue, red, green, brown, or black to save on time.
Another attraction to this particular car is that the curves and
unique form that is has.
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| "Car Demo" by Dawn Star Wood |
At
the meeting, after being introduced to the wonderfully cheerful
members of the art group, I went about doing my demonstration after
apologizing ahead of time in case I stuttered. Silently I did curse
in the back of my mind when I started because the day before I had
picked up a sheet of Hot Press paper since the art supply store near
me was out of my usual Cold Press. So why was I having such negative
things going through my mind while politely chatting and explaining
what I do? For the simple fact that I discovered that 140lb Hot Press
watercolor paper, though smooth, did not give me enough time to work
with the paint before any and all moisture was sucked into the paper
like a desert taking in a drop of rain. So here I was essentially
experimenting with a product I've never used before while attempting
to act as if everything was fine. The meeting itself went well and
though I didn't finish the painting there, I had told those who were
there that I would finish the painting at home and share it with them
via email so that they could see the end result. It took 2 days at
home to work on the painting to get it to a point that I'm satisfied
with and can say that
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