Draper International Arts & Crafts Festival

It was such a treat to have a booth at Draper’s International Arts & Crafts Festival a couple of weeks ago. This is only the second year that the City of Draper has put on this festival, and it was noticeably larger than last year. There was over 100 vendors selling crafts, art, jewelry, textiles, and more.

They had lots of different performances on a main stage. Here is a link to a YouTube video that the city made about the event. I’m not in the video at all, but it gives you a good idea of the different booths that were there. There were lots of different food vendors too, which is usually my favorite part of any festival.

I had my 10x10 foot tent again, but this time I was somewhat limited to keeping all of my stuff inside my booth rather than letting it spill outside a bit. I also used two of the side walls to help with the wind and to give my booth more of an entrance and exit path. So this made it impossible for me to sit down and paint like I did at Draper’s Art in the Barn.

This turned out to be a good thing.

One: the whole festival was only from 10am until 4pm, so it was overall a very short day.

Two: it rained! Right around 2:15pm, a summer thunderstorm rolled in and it started raining. It rained hard enough to for me to move all of my stuff UNDER the tent and away from the edges. Of course, this was right when my taekwondo studio (along with my kids) was beginning their performance on the main stage too. Thankfully, I was able to watch it via Facebook Live.

It only rained off and on for an hour and then the sun came back out. Overall, it was a beautiful day, Quite a few friends were able to stop by my booth and say hello and buy a few stickers and prints. I had lots of kids stop by to pick up coloring pages or to just sit and color for a while.

A new thing that I had at my booth was a handful of blank, steel water bottles and tumblers. If you bought one, you could choose any two stickers to put on it for free.

Click on this image to see the Reel I posted about my booth.

All in all, having a booth at this festival was a really fun experience and I will definitely do it again next summer. Both experiences with a booth at a festival and an art show have made me want to search online for different festivals to judge the booth fees and potential travel expenses to see if it may be worth doing more often. I had a couple of people tell me that I would do well having a booth at shows down in Hurricane and St. George.

Off to do more research….

Product of the Month - May 2021 - daVinci CosmoTop Spin Travel Brushes

It’s time for another Product of the Month. I’m mostly sharing art supplies at this point, but I know for sure that next month will be something different. I find so many random products useful in my line of work and in my life, and I really love to share about them when I can. Any time I’m traveling with others, we end up shopping among everyone’s gear and supplies.

There are a few affiliate links in this post. Using them is up to you, but when you do, know that I say “thank you” out loud from my office and my kids wonder if I’m talking to myself.

I love to travel, and when there isn’t a pandemic, I love to travel with my Art Toolkit, which I wrote about here; in case I have the time to paint en plein air. While the kit came with a great water brush, I still prefer to use a traditional brush with a cup of water. I have a plastic cup I usually stuff in my backpack and I’m sure I’ll buy myself a collapsable cups when my son and I start backpacking again this year.

A few years ago I bought a size 3, synthetic travel brush from daVinci to give it a try and I was surprised how often I use it; even when I’m at home. It’s really perfect for travel and to fit in small spaces. The synthetic bristles hold their shape really well and a great amount of water for the smaller surfaces I work on. I bought a couple more sizes earlier this year and I have loved using them.

daVinci makes kolinsky sable and red sable versions of their travel brushes, but they are more expensive and I wasn’t willing to spend that much more on brushes that would potentially get beat up.

When I’m not using my travel brushes, I do love my kolinsky sable brushes from Trekell and I am always on the lookout for new brushes to fall in love with. I know that the manufacturers of synthetic brushes are making them better and better so we don’t have to rely on animal hair for high quality anymore. I have my eye on a few, but I’m waiting for them to go on sale.

What are your favorite brushes for watercolor??

Ian's 1st Birthday

For his 1st birthday, Ian wanted a monster struck theme and his mommy, Syrita had his party at a children’s art studio. So, what to do? Create an invitation with both monster trucks AND art!

I love how it turned out!

Happy birthday Ian! I hope your party was a blast!

Still-Life Painting and Stress-Relief

My grandma’s silver champagne bucket; this was a homework assignment. Still kicking myself for not getting an actual bottle of champagne. I would’ve enjoyed sharing it with Grandma.

When I was in college, even though I was majoring in animation (yeah, that changed), a still-life painting class was a required course in my first year. It met once a week for six hours (lots of my classes were like that) and before it even started, I dreaded it. I loved painting landscapes, but I’d never painted a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers. The idea seemed daunting to my early-twenties self and I had no interest in a subject matter that I considered boring.

Little did I know that still-life painting class would turn out to be one of my favorite classes ever. Not only did I learn more about what makes good composition and how to use light and color in different ways, but I also learned how to paint reflective surfaces, how to paint transparent glass, how to paint folds in fabric, and how to really handle oil paints (I’d only ever painted with acrylics). But mostly, it was just a fun class. We’d crank up some music (usually Pink Floyd or Bjork) and just paint. That class became a source of stress-relief when other classes, a long commute, and work had me frazzled and feeling overwhelmed.

My second or third attempt at painting wine glasses. I loved how they turned out but didn’t love the pink fabric. This canvas is in a pile of ones I’m planning to let my kids paint over. The frame houses a different painting now.

A couple of canvases went to my grandma; whom I lived with when finishing college. She would often call dibs on canvases before I was even finished with them. A painting of fruit and a silver kettle on a purple tablecloth went to my mother-in-law. I even managed to sell two little 5x7 canvases to a random customer from my job at a picture framing store.

One of the 5x7 paintings I actually sold, eggplant, Bosch pear, and grapes in an extravagant frame. Sometimes it was fun to get to play with scrap pieces of moulding.

The other little canvas I sold, this one was my favorite with the little silver pitcher and pomegranate. I’m a little sad I don’t have them anymore, or at least have a higher quality photo, but I needed the money at the time.

Quite a few canvases were garbage too and I will eventually paint over them, or let my kids paint over them. This painting was my favorite with the copper kettle and brass bowl. It currently sits on my dresser and though I don’t love the frame, looking at it brings me back to that still-life class and the peace it brought me each week.

For some reason, that flower was the hardest part to paint, hahahah!

It’s been probably fifteen years since I painted with oils and the idea of starting up again with small children just seemed daunting. My 3rd grader has recently shown some interest, so I ordered some student-grade oil paints. Thankfully, I have a few unfinished canvases that we can doodle on and we’ll see what sparks us to put on canvas.