Watercolor Canvas & Cockatiel laying eggs....

I know, what a combination for the title line. It's been a heck of a last couple of weeks - and of course, the more I try to stay focused on my work, the more things seem to happen to pull my focus away from it. Sigh.

The weekend began in a rather interesting way. Friday night, all my kids things for the week ended, and I was really looking forward to the beginning of the new week - FINALLY, I don't have to be running here, there and everywhere and I can focus on my work.

On Friday evening during my usual trip to Hobby Lobby, I decided to invest in some of the watercolor canvases they have and give it a whirl. Of course I fell in love with the stuff and want to buy much more. And of course Hobby Lobby has such limited art supplies, I'll now be visiting the online dealers to order my future supplies. (sorry Hobby Lobby, but you don't carry enough supplies for artists!)

So I'm working on this painting of a dark purple Iris and the first layers are coming along great. I then come upstairs and discover my cockatiel - whom I've had for 3 years and thought was a male - has laid an egg on the floor of the cage. OMG! Of course, since I'd never experienced this, I went into "seek knowledge" mode, got on the net and found the answers to what is up with this bird and what to do and not to do.

I did manage to finish the small Iris painting, but it was tough, and I don't think it turned out exactly as good as I'd like because my mind was on the bird issue. Another sigh.

I have decided though, that I love this watercolor canvas. I'm still getting used to it - it's quite different than painting on paper - but I really like it and after I do about 3 paintings, I think I'll have the hang of it. It might, however, change the complexity of where I was planning to go with my work. I would love to do my Sun Sign series on this support, but I really think I need to get a very good feel for the canvas before I do that. So I'll be working on some smaller pieces - using both the watercolor canvas paper and smaller stretched canvases. The paper pieces will be matted and ready for framing - the stretched canvases will either be offered without a frame, or will eventually be framed and hung in the gallery.

The wonderful thing about this watercolor stretched canvas is you don't have to frame behind glass! And no matting! The pieces have to be sprayed with a sealer first, but with sides painted, these in essence could be hung without a frame at all.

The thing I don't like is they don't offer miniature canvases - I've found nothing smaller than an 8x10 in the watercolor stretched canvas. So for smaller pieces, I'll have to use the canvas paper and mount another way (such as behind a mat and frame) to finish them out.

Overall, I'm really pleased with this product. I'll share some of the work once completed totally.

Jai