A few weeks ago I was perusing through Facebook and came across an event that was putting out a call to artists. It was for a harvest moon show going on in the city next to mine. The deadline was going to be close, but I was having a strong art streak the last couple of weeks, so I decided why not?
I emailed them for show details and was emailed back the next day. Admittedly I was sort of intimidated by the wording of their terms and conditions when I first read it and decided to table it. For the next few days I went back and forth on whether or not to submit something. On the one hand I really wanted to since this would actually be show that is local to where I live. On the other hand I was also still exhausted from doing two shows with Thumbprint gallery. I debated it up until the night before submissions were due, but before my hair appointment I decided to go in full force and made my trip to Michael’s.
Thankfully Michael’s was having a sale on some of their frames, so I was able to find a nice grey, wood textured one. I didn’t have any true idea of the size and orientation of my piece, but ended up picking my frame based mainly on the discounted price.
Then the night began!
I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do. Even though I knew it was clique, I really wanted to just do the moon with wheat stalks. I brought out a bowl and traced where I wanted the moon on the page and just went to work sketching out the wheat.
I’m not exactly sure how long it took me to do it, but I made it through an entire season of Neo Yokio (not wonderful), as well as finish the 1st season of The Good Place. I think that the hardest part for me to get through was just coloring the whole background black. In hindsight I could’ve used a larger pen to do it, but I didn’t want the hue of the black to change because I switched brands of pens.
Speaking of which, here are the brands and pen types that I used:
After I finally got everything filled in, it was time to add the fine details and finishing touches. It was tricky to fix the wheat grains (I had made the grains too spaced out). I ended up filling the empty spaces with black.
Last but not least, it was time to fill in the moon. I know that the moon’s face that faces the earth stays the same, so I made it a big deal to be as accurate as possible. I’m not very familiar with using water based coloring, so this was a big leap for me. Overall I’m glad with how it turned out.
Here is the final product:
If you are interested in seeing it in person, visit Contrived to Charm in downtown Vista before November 29th.
404 Modal