What struck me particularly about yesterday’s project work was the contrast in what we made.

Eevi , who is a friend and artist and partner in this project sent me photos of her outdoor studio and also photos at different stages .

It’s thanks to Eevi that I have tried sculpting tufa blocks and become a little more adventurous.

However… I am encouraged greatly by the freedom she enjoys to try different things. For me it’s like being told I can play. To back this point up..I still vividly remember going to a birthday party when I was 5 and everybody was blowing bubbles with their straws in their drinks . Even after being told to join in I wouldn’t do it because I had been told it was a bad thing to do. Not sure if I cried but it was a close thing.

So playing at art is like being bad….sometimes I think I have grown up and changed…and then I wonder.

The “rule” this week is to not use paintbrushes.

So this is what Eevi made.

She used pear and wild Strawberry leaves.

Yesterday I started a new large commission painting an olive tree…and had planned to do my hour of project work when I got back to the country. However it rained , so I was stuck in my little house studio . I had no idea what to do. Looking through my boxes of old paintings I don’t like. I found a small one of a scene in Venice. I think it’s awful and can’t imagine how I ever liked it. So in childish fashion I decided I would punish it by painting over it. I spotted a tube of iridescent bright pink…can’t think what I used it for, and using a scrunched up paper towel I made Venice pink. Just beside the tube of bright pink was a little jar of gold dust….so I shook some of that over Venice…..it now looked mmmmm, pink and gold?

I went hunting for something else and I found some lovely transparent material with flowers on it. I cut out the flowers and glued them on…getting in quite a mess and hoping that the glue really would turn transparent when it dried.

Then I found some lace and red ribbon in my sewing box and made a kind of border.

So having suitably ” punished ” Venice for being such a bad painting I figured I was done.

I wish I had thought to take photos of the process… but will do so next time.

It was an interesting experience and can truthfully say I have never done anything like that before.