Getting ready for plein air painting...

Last week the weather was so hot that I preferred not to open the studio's balcony door. So, I couldn't work with oils. Instead of, I decided to work with soft pastels (see pic below) and did some handcraft work for my upcoming project. I cut an old denim pant to make an apron for outside painting and I felt great creating something useful. (see pics below) 

 "Sewing kit" by Birsen Ozbilge, 21, 5 x 21,5 cm., 

soft pastel on Stonehenge paper, Aug 2015

work in progress

Recycled denim pant for painting apron.

Finally the guerilla French box for plein air is finished. It seems very stable and strong, I am hoping to use it soon. If you have a lightweight portable outdoor easel and a small wooden box, you can make one without spending lots of money. I used a simple wooden box. (see close up pics.) The box had a set of watercolor pencils which I did not care to take them out.. Simply we made 4 wholes on the each side for the L shape metal pieces. Than used 4 screws with tightening pieces. For fixing the box in 90 degree we slit a pen through the metal piece, so this way it didn't move. To stop the painting board from the bottom we used the smallest metal file clips. To control the top cover, we made 2 wholes on the back part of the box and used a shoe lace to fix with the easel. It takes about 4-5 minutes to set it up and the equipment is quite light.

My guerilla french box with Winsor & Newton easel 

for plein air painting 

Also, we visited last week an arts & crafts fair at the south of the island at Faro de Maspalomas. It was a very hot and cloudy day but there were many visitors at the fair. There were 66 stands in this year's edition. I met with few craftmakers, one of them was the owner of Indeparte, Alicia. She was selling beautiful hand painted portraits of the local birds on t-shirts. (see pic below). 

Indeparte - Alicia Garcia (Painting on garments)  

at 8a Feria Artesanía Faro de Maspalomas

visit her facebook page Indeparte

Have a great week!

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