Because last week's voice lesson for Youngest got cancelled, we had a double lesson today. It was also the day her teacher recorded and burned a CD of Youngest singing 3 songs as her year end project. Listening to it on the way home, I have to say, she nailed Hallelujah down pat! I was quite impressed.
Youngest is leaning towards not continuing her voice lessons. We'll see how it works out. If she decides not to, I hope she continues to sing and practise on her own, because she has a truly wonderful voice. The last thing I want is for her to lose her joy in singing, and forcing lessons on her might do that.
During the home learning expo, someone suggested Eldest show her work at an art show in the summer. We looked into it and it was something she was interested in. The registration date is actually past, but she found out there were still some spaces left. The very best ones are sold out, but there were still some decent spaces left. Yesterday, we'd tried going to the art supply store registration forms were at. We all remembered seeing this place on a certain road, but never found it and finally headed home. Going online, we ended up finding two different addresses for the place. On the way home from Youngest's lesson, we took a little detour to find the other address, just a street and a few blocks away from where we'd been looking before. Sure enough, we found the place - and it even had free parking!
So, shortly after dropping Youngest off at home (with her dad, who was home from work because of his back again), Eldest and I headed back to the art supply store. She asked questions, saw a map of the different spaces still available, and so on. We found out they needed some photos/images of samples from each artist on registration, so we took a form and headed back home. Because of how few good spaces were left, we wanted to get the registration done as quickly as possible - namely, before the place closed at 6 pm. Eldest filled it out, then went to print out some of her scans on photo paper so we could head back to the store with everything needed.
I should probably mention that our printer/scanner combo is broken right now, and I'm too cheap to buy a new one. Somewhere inside, a piece that grabs the left side of the printer paper broke. Without it, the paper would be grabbed only on one side, get all crooked, then jam in the printer. We could, however, still print anything small enough that it only needed to be grabbed on the right side of the printer. Like 4x6 photo paper. I've been using it, and it had been printing beautifully.
Notice I'm using the past tense here.
Eldest went to print out her painting, Absolution.
Note the colours in this painting. Lots of reds and blacks. Some touches of blues and yellows in the stained glass window. Generally, rather dark and moody, right?
Now try to imagine it in bright green. Cyan, to be more precise. With a bit of yellow in the window.
The image was still incredibly crisp and detailed. It was just... well... green!
I tested the printer again using different software, checking all the settings, and using a different painting. No luck. That one was printed in cyan and yellow, too.
Looks like I'm going to have to stop being cheap and figure out how to pay for a new printer/scanner. :-P
Unable to print the images ourselves, Eldest picked several of her scans and saved them onto a memory card. We headed to a nearby mall and a pharmacy with a photo centre we could get them printed out at. Then it was back to the art supply store.
Unfortunately, this meant cutting across downtown through the height of rush hour traffic.
It took a while, but we still got there with a generous amount of time. A few minutes later, and her registration was complete! She has a spot in a decent, if not prime, location.
Over the next while, we will need to accumulate what she'll need for a display. She just has a spot, nothing else. We'll at least be picking up some grid walls and hooks to hang her paintings from (and her registration gives her a discount on those, plus any art supplies she buys from that chain). Artists are expected to demonstrate during the 3 day event, so she'll need a set up of some kind to draw or paint at. I'm thinking some sort of folding shelter for shade would be a good idea. Business cards would be good as well.
Then there's the most difficult thing of all. Figuring out how to price her work! How does one even figure that out? We've been looking at art for sale as we find them, and have been pretty stunned by the prices we've seen - and the art those prices have been attached to. How does one decide to charge more than $700 for a painting done on one of those pre-stretched canvases you can buy pretty much anywhere these days, that involves little more than splashes of paint. Not to put down the visual appeal or skill of abstract art, but it's really hard for me to understand how finger painting in oil on a fairly small canvas can justify price tags heading towards the $1000 range. Plus, this is a street festival type setting. People just don't walk around with many hundreds of dollars in the wallets.
Okay, I take that back. While working in the grocery store, I did see a surprising number of people who did just that.
Ah, well. We'll figure something out.
All in all, though, we're pretty excited for Eldest. It would be so cool for her to start selling her paintings!
Anyhow. Where was I? Oh, right.
By the time all that running around was done, the idea of cooking supper just didn't appeal to me. I had been thinking of barbecuing some meat and some asparagus, but just didn't feel like it anymore. So on the way home, Eldest and I stopped at our favorite Italian grocery store and picked up some sandwich fixings. Fresh baked bread (since opening their second store, this place bakes all their own bread in an old style bread oven every day), some smoked provolone, goat cheese, turkey breast, peppercorn salami, lettuce and Polish mayonnaise, to go with the artichoke hearts we already had at home.
The joys of living just a few blocks away from the best deli in the city.
Now that the art show is a go, Eldest plans to be painting up a storm in the next while. She doesn't want to sell a lot of her older paintings, since they're on paper and use paints she now knows are substandard. Seeing some of her sketches tonight for a planned triptych, I'm really looking forward to how they turn out!
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