Great time in Elmira!

We had a wonderful time this weekend in Elmira despite the rain on Saturday. We arrived at the Newtown Battlefield State Park Friday evening and stayed in one of the little cabins...which was very cute. The festival started the next morning at 10am and we got started painting the background colors with tempera paint. The tempera, which is water based, makes a nice even background for the soft pastel layer. As we were finishing up the last of the background, a volunteer stopped by to let us know that a storm was rolling in and we should get it covered up. We had to let the paint dry a little bit first and then we laid two layers of plastic over the painted background. It made no sense to start gridding anything out because chances were that some

water would find it's way under the plastic, no matter how well it's taped...and it would all just be lost. So, we decided to wait until the next day to get started with the grid, sketching and soft pastels. The thunderstorm came that afternoon and pretty much wiped out any chance of going back and getting started with the soft pastels. George and I went down to the painting the next morning around 5:30am to remove the plastic to give the paint a chance to dry out before we came back at 8am. George, my mom and myself started snapping the chalk lines for the grid and I got started sketching out the painting. By 11:30am I was finshed sketching and we got started laying in the soft pastel. The judging was at 2pm and the festival ended at 4pm, so I knew I was up against the clock....not a very good way to paint. I concentrated mostly on the face while my mom worked on the fruit and the upper corners and my husband cleaned up the borders. We managed to get some of it finished, but sadly, more of it went unfinished...which was kind of a bummer. I decided that I wanted to at least outline some of the areas, so onlookers would be able to get an idea of what the image was intended to be.

Even though we lost a day and I didn't get to finish my painting, it's really to be expected when painting on the street....nothing endures....

This is the finished painting, well...not "finished"...but where we decided to stop....

We all had a fantastic time and my mother and husband were of great help, I wouldn't want to go without them! We had the chance while we were taking breaks to look at the other artists work, which was just fantastic! I'll upload a seperate slide show of the other artwork so everyone can enjoy it.

Many thanks to the wonderful people that work for the Elmira Downtown Development, they always do such a wonderful job putting on this event, it will be something we attend for many years to come. The best part of the festival would have to be the kind people that we met, from the onlookers walking by, to the business owners and of course the other artists....!! Hope to see all of you there next year!

(This is the postcard they sent out this year...with my street painting from last year...very cool!)