Preparation stage 1...

Before :-)

Today was stage one of the annual spring clean of the Gin Palace.  

This year we seem to have developed a bit of a mildew problem so the clean took much longer than planned.  In fact it took poor D all day and two bottles of mildew remover to go over every surface, including the ceiling.  The windows will be done in the coming days then we have a trip to Ikea planned for Thursday morning to replace the rug we chucked out at the end of last season. Fingers crossed the Gin Palace will be ready for its official 2025 opening by the weekend :-)

Whilst D was filling the garden with the delicate scent of bleach, I was in the studio getting ready to tackle day one of the five day acrylic painting course I signed up for.  

I printed off the reference photo and a wee voice deep in my mind whispered you're never going to be able to paint that but I ignored it, pinned it up next to my canvas and watched the video.  

Day one was all about laying the foundations for the painting.  Katie, the artist, is really excellent at explaining her process and it all made perfect sense.  When the time came to put brush to canvas I was a little bit nervous but soon got into it and enjoyed getting the initial marks made.  More used to painting in watercolour and being constantly mindful at how unforgiving a medium that is, it's a pleasure to put lines on canvas in acrylic, knowing it can be painted over and mistakes easily corrected.  

Today's tutorial only lasted about 20 minutes (took me about 30 as I stopped and started the video and watched some bits more than once) and I am happy with my attempts to far.  We are invited to upload our work to the course's private FB page so I did, and was delighted to get feedback from the artist saying "Wow! Really nice shapes." Looking forward to the next stage.

Still not in the right frame of mind to watch Adolescence so started watching Yellowstone instead.  Liking it so far.