Art Quartet: Live Collaborative Painting Event

One of two paintings created during the event last weekend. We were only planning on doing one, but it wasn't
big enough for us all to work at the same time. And a bunch of artists are not going to sit around and watch....

Artist Christine Newman starting off
the first of the two paintings.

Last weekend I did something new and different for me. I worked on a collaborative painting with 3 other artists from the area, and since we were working in a gallery, we opened it up to the public to come and watch. I actually don't really know how many people came by to see what we were doing.... I get very focused when I'm working and someone could stand beside me and I wouldn't know they're there. But I'm told it was a pretty successful event and we had a good turn out.

Working with other artists is interesting. Everyone sees different things when they look at a painting in progress. There were a few times when we stopped to discuss what was working and what wasn't, and then between us quickly figured out a direction. When I'm working alone it can take me weeks to figure out what the problem is and how to fix it. To complete two pieces in a 4 hour time span seemed pretty amazing to me. And the fact that I thought they were both good even more amazing.

Overall everyone seemed to enjoy the whole thing and it was agreed that we would do this again in the future. The gallery has already started to plan the next event in September... I won't be participating due to family obligations, but it is sure to be a good time. If you live in the Toronto area and think you'd like to pop around to watch, you can follow either Imagemaker gallery or myself on Facebook for updates.

I had a drawing of a bird prepared in advance... just in case we needed something. Here Lisa and Christine are holding it in place while I paint around it. 

As we had only planned on doing one piece, we had a charity lined up to take it and give it a home. The second piece came about because having 3 artists sit around while one is working really isn't a reasonable expectation. We were bored in minutes, and rooting around in the basement we found an old canvas we could use for the second. You can tell by looking at the finished piece that this was the one I spent most of my time on. It has something of my "style" showing... though definitely not my usual colour choices. The smaller "Whirlwind" painting was donated to Interm Place, a local women's shelter. We aren't sure yet what we're going to do with the larger one... they don't have space to take both, so we're looking at other charities as options. Or possibly auctioning it off and donating the proceeds. We'll figure out something.

Artist Lisa Jayne Irvine is working on the smaller of the two pieces.
We all switched back and forth all afternoon, working on the piece that was
speaking to us at the moment.  

Graffiti artist Joseph Capobianco adding the lettering to the almost complete piece...

While he was doing that, the rest of us worked on finishing the other one...

And the second piece complete. This one has been donated to Interm Place, a local women's shelter.
Everyone needs a little beauty in their lives. Hopefully this will provide a bit for these residents.