Monday, July 16, 2007

One Fish, Two Fish


I meant to post yesterday, but some joker sent my husband a huge file and told him it was ok to open it. Well, it wasn't really. Our computers moved at a snail's pace for the rest of the day and so doing anything on them was impossible.

Anyway, the last few days have been so hectic. I know I always say that, but really, they have been. I am crazily trying to finish up a 48x60 panel in addition to three 24x36 panels so that Doug can deliver them to the gallery in Soho tomorrow. I still have to paint the edges, photograph them and put the hangers on. At least I am finished painting them. I was still doing that yesterday!

I would have spent all weekend working on them, but on Saturday I was in charge of running an art project at the Otsego Lake Festival, a local community event. I did this same event last year and while it was fun, it was also draining. I had thought maybe I'd bow out this year, but in a fit of insanity I said I would do it again, when the organizer asked me.

This year I decided to do fish prints on t-shirts, cloth or paper, using real, but dead (and gutted) fish. I used to include this activity in the events I put together in Utah and the whole painting a dead fish was always a popular project with the kids. Here, very few people who came by on Saturday had ever seen this done and so I think I cemented my reputation as a creative, if a bit kooky, artist in these parts. While last year my booth was busy, this time it was downright packed from start to finish. It was all I could do to keep up with rinsing brushes, wiping down the fish, hanging the prints up to dry and explaining the process to the participants. Luckily Doug came to help and my daughters and their friends were so helpful too and stayed with me nearly the entire afternoon. Even though I was utterly exhausted after being on my feet and feeling frantic for almost 6 hours, I have to say that it was a really satisfying day. The kids (and adults) who made prints seemed to really enjoy themselves and even the endless jokes by parents about the fish smell and fish for dinner were funny. Well, for the first few hours at least. Heh.

Now that my feet don't hurt anymore, I am feeling very happy about the whole thing and I suspect I will be doing it again next summer....







6 comments:

Chris Rywalt said...

Ew.

gary rith said...

;^)

GiselleG said...

My kids would be all over those fish prints. C'mon... how often does one have the opportunity to paint a fish? Much appeal.

meno said...

I worked a booth once with fish painting. There were some seriously cool prints that came out of it.

indigomar said...

very cool results! I've seen the idea in books, but never tried it. I'm tucking it away for future reference.

Tracy Helgeson said...

Chris, I didn't realize that you have such a delicate constitution:)

Thanks, Gary.

Giselle, very appealing, and my kids are old hands at it by now.

Meno, I heard from several people that there is a store in Cape Cod (Chatham) that sells tshirts with a fish print on it from a real fish. One kid was wearing his and it was very cool.

Definitely keep that project in mind, Indigomar. I'd like to do it sometime as well. I have only done a few demos but never tried my hand at it for real. It's on my list:)