What's she building in there?

I finished a painting and built a canvas this evening; it was a good night's work. I was finally able to make use of the white reflective road paint I ordered. It's really strange! It has all these tiny glass beads in it so you have to mix it up really well, and once it's applied you dust it with more glass beads (looked like clear, glittery sand). It's really pretty and I'm excited to see what it will be like when it's dry.



Stretching the new canvas was almost un-doable. I've never stretched anything as big before and it was hard finding leverage. I would stand on the rim to hold it down and pull the canvas as hard as I could with the canvas pliers in one hand and then shoot my staple gun with the other. I persevered despite a few moments of Oh My God I'm Going to Need Help.



If you've never stretched a canvas you've completely missed out on an incredibly intense form of self torture. I kind of love it in the way I love seeing how far I can walk in -25 degree weather before I give in and get on a bus. It's a challenge. And the canvas I built tonight turned out amazing and when you slap it, it sounds like a drum. I put one layer of gesso down and I'll do a second coat tomorrow.



I've asked for Thursday and Friday off from work this week because I feel like the summer is fleeting and I haven't been able to concentrate on my painting as much as I'd like (really, it would be a 24-hr a day thing if I could swing it) and the intensive German class begins on Monday, which will pretty much put an end to the art stuff for an entire month. So I'm going to devote Thursday and Friday entirely to painting instead of to work, and hopefully I'll be able to make some good headway.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JaLjwSpZ6Cs