As I mentioned a few weeks ago, on Thursday, April 17, 2008 I did a live painting before an audience of about 500 people (including elementary students and their parents), for a fund-raiser dinner for Shayne Elementary in Nashville. It was interesting, because the kids got to see me do a giant painting that resembled their logo/mascot. As I painted, pianist Dr. James Stevens, Chairman of the Music Deptartment and choir director at the Freewill Baptist College on West End Avenue in Nashville, played some lovely tunes.

Sketches

Of course, long before I even arrived, I started out with several sketches in my sketchbook. I had intended to do the lettering in a style similar to the House Industries typeface Neutraface, but since I was pressed for time, I wrote everything pretty quickly. If I had the luxury of working on this on my own time, I probably would’ve given the lettering that tight Art Deco look that I love.

Prepping the Canvas: blocking in the words

So I started out writing in the words first with a pencil, and then I brushed them on in gray. The words are from the school’s slogan.

Blocking in Color

Then I began painting in various colors. One child came up and asked me why I was painting over the words. I said, “Wait and see,” which of course frustrated her. Little did anyone know the words would reappear.

So I continued building up the colors until the words were gone, and the star appeared…

A little girl asked me how long I had been painting. My adult brain calculated how long it’s been since the fall semester of my sophomore year of college (Fall 1998) so I answered, “about 9 years or so.” The girl just looked at me with a confused face and then said, “No! I mean this!” “Oh,” I said. “About 20 minutes.” It’s funny how the mind of a child and the mind of an adult work so differently.

Still adding in color, filling in the space at the bottom with blue before doing the name of the school in white.

The Slogan Returns

Then the words from the slogan returned, arranged in a circle around the star, and I was done in about an hour, taking a lot longer than I usually do for this sort of thing. It usually takes about 20 minutes, but this had quite a lot of writing on it.

The painting was a lot of fun, and very satisfying to create. Surprisingly, the canvas was dry a few hours later. Usually this kind of thing will be wet for a good while longer, but I don’t guess I piled the paint on like I usually do. Or maybe it was how warm it was in the cafeteria.

The fund-raiser dinner was a success; the school raised more money than they’ve ever raised before at this annual dinner. I’m thrilled to have been a part of that. The painting will hang in the front foyer of the school, over the cafeteria doors.