Great Expectations Day 59 Wildflower Guitar
Happy Accidents! As my daughter was leaning over my shoulder watching me work on the guitar last night, her hair swooshed over a part that was still very wet with oil paint. It left a beautiful scratchy mark in the paint that can only be done by accident. She thought I’d be upset, but “NO!” I loved it. After making sure I got any oil paint out of her hair, I tried to replicate the look with my own hair. But it didn’t work. So I used a large course bristle brush in some of the wet areas and got a similar result as with the accident “daughter’s-hair” brush. Yeah!
Since the paint was still so very wet, I could not paint the little objects onto the area that I wanted to. Not wanting to wait until the paint was dry, I decided to try scratching (drawing) the objects into the wet paint. (see above photo) Tried a toothpick first, but it was too small of a point. The handle end of a paint brush worked just fine. I drew in images that I thought about when reading Great Expectations. (These were used in a previous sketch I did.)
Now, what I read today, on page 64:
The stranger in the Three Jolly Bargemen orders rum “all around” at his expense (just for himself, Joe and Mr Wopsle). The stranger is described as wearing a large brimmed floppy hat and under it a tied handkerchief covering all of his hair, if he has any at all. That’s it! Not much today. Probably find out who this stranger is tomorrow or Monday. Have a great weekend!
Great Expectations Day 58
I’m working on my Great Expectations guitar for the Wildflower festival finally! I could not decide between the two designs I had sketched out, so obviously they were just not right. I couldn’t get excited about either one. This new design came to me really quickly. I sketched it out and got started right away.
First, back to the story (look further down to see the progression of my guitar painting):
Pip describes the night classes he attends at Mr Wopsle’s great-aunt’s shop. (It’s also her bed-chamber and she pretty much just dozes off the whole time!) Here is his description of what goes on: the children toss an old book around, fighting, great-aunt sleeps, Biddy reads aloud and they try to follow along and it’s very dark during the winter in the shop so it’s hard to even see.
After class, Pip stops by the Three Jolly Bargemen, the local public-house, to fetch Joe and take him home. Joe is by the fire, smoking his pipe, with Mr Wopsle and a stranger. I wonder if the word “pub” comes from public-house? Yes, it does. Here are some facts about how pubs got started from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_house
Guitar work:
(I am painting in oils directly on the guitar. This will not be the most exciting guitar at the event! And I am OK with this. There will be some amazing pieces there, especially ones that are more like sculpture, greatly altered…. really cool. But I feel strongly that I want my guitars to still be playable – to still function as a guitar.)
Great Expectations Day 57
Dickens gives a beautiful description of how just one day can make a difference in one’s whole life… of how one thing can happen on just one day and that thing changes the course of that person’s life forever. The first link in a chain of events (“a chain of iron, gold, thorns or flowers”) gets started one day and continues to grow and alters a life.
Pip is referring to the start of a chain of events that he suspects will grow and continue to alter the course of his life. And that first link in the chain of events was his visit with Miss Havisham, set up by Uncle Pumblechook. Pip was called “common” by the beautiful young Estella at this visit. So he decides that day to become “uncommon” and asks Biddy to teach him everything she knows.
I did a floral watercolor chain in the shape of the word common. I wanted “common” to be anything but common.
I am still thinking about my designs for the Richardson Wildflower Festival guitar. Here are two ideas. One is more traditional with images of the main characters and a horse and carriage. The other is more graphic and “design-y”. I like both, but just need to decide. Please help me! Let me know which you prefer. THANKS!
Guitar Design A:
Guitar Design B
My name is Julie and I'm reading Great Expectations one page a day and also creating one little work of art (30 minutes or less) a day relating to what I read. Thanks for looking and reading. Leave a comment to let me know what you think!
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