I was honored with an invite to help with the "Rae-Ann Nursing" booth at this years event. Rae-Ann is a family-owned nursing and rehabilitation company with 4 local facilities and is a consistent Best of the West winner. It is very easy to understand why - The staff are all incredibly kind and welcoming, they have wonderful programs for their residents (including many community art ones!) and.... they have their own in-house bakery!!
At this year's Best of the West, Rae-Ann wanted to promote their many art programs, so they invited me to create some live art with the Best of the West attendees!
The idea was to get Best of the West Voters (A.K.A anyone who attends the event) to engage with the Rae-Ann Staff as they add their own personal touch to an on-going collaborative painting. My job was to get everything ready and to cheerfully invite people to draw... which might be one of my favorite activities anyway, so I had a GREAT time!
We decided to use a 36in x 48in canvas as the support. Since messes were a concern, we bought paint markers for people to use. What fun colors!!! Most of the markers we bought were Sharpie brand paint markers, Medium Size. The sharpie "Bold" size has a tendency to loose its felt tip - which is not so fun when you are trying to get fancy-dressed people to draw! I did like the Elmer's "Painters" brand as well, but the color choices were very limited.
Before the event, I used some of the paint markers to add logos and a floral banner at the top of the canvas.
To make sure everything was exact, I printed out the logos actual size and used transfer paper to get them on the canvas perfect. (FYI: Carefully tracing this way leads to not-so-fun hand cramps. Rest often!) I then outlined all my letters before filling them in (Ron the BF was a big help here!)
The pretty flowers at the top started out as pencil drawings, but that didn't last too long and most of them ended up free-form. They are VERY inspired by my Mexican-ish ceramics last year, particularly this collaborative piece (I painted, Sue threw, Joan Sculpted):
It took me 2 nights to finish all the canvas decoration.
I had a blast decorating this canvas with everyone at the event! I think it turned out pretty great...
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| The quilt on the right was made by local elementary school students and features Westlake city founders! I LOVE it. Can you guess which square is my favorite (hint it's orange!)? |
It's amazing to see what people will draw or write when you give them a fun colored marker!
Thanks Rae-Ann for letting me hang out with you last week - I had a wonderful time. :)
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