Painting for the Oregon Country Fair – part 2

Continuing our Oregon Country Fair painting adventures, the next icon I painted on the Stewardship and Sustainability banner was a design depicting veggies that are grown on the OCF property. They feed 100’s of people pre-fair delicious healthy meals with a lovely salad bar option for lunch and dinner. Many of the vegetables served are grown in their own organic garden. After visiting the garden and seeing what was growing, I drew up a design showing cabbage, kale, broccoli with a sunflower, since there were many sunflower plants throughout the garden.

I drew on tracing paper so I could make sure it’d fit in it’s allotted space on the banner, then I made my own graphite carbon paper to place between my drawing and the banner. To make it, I colored a rectangle of graphite onto computer paper, then gently wiped it with rubbing alcohol on a small piece of paper towel which helped melt the graphite onto the paper and make it a bit less likely to flake off. I used more graphite and colored in where it was thin, wiped with a bit more alcohol then tucked it into a file folder to keep it from making a mess everywhere while in transit. This can be used over and over, and when you lay it below your sketch, trace with an ink pen and then you can see where you’ve drawn. It helps to tape the graphite and part of your original sketch to your canvas (or the banner in my case) to keep things from slipping.

There are paints available at the sign barn to use, but this year I brought my own brushes and paints. Since there can be numerous different sign painters that work in the space, it’s much easier to keep track of things if I have my own kit. I remember needing to hunt down colors that wandered off last year, or finding a cup of mixed paint left open and dried out. Since I was just painting small images compared to giant signs, it was better for my sanity to have my own materials!

It was a family affair again, with my daughter working on cart numbers and my husband designing and prepping sign boards for the new Info and White Bird booth in the New Area.

That afternoon we were entertained by live music, including Artis the Spoonman. He painted next to me several days in a row, and we had a lot of good conversations. He enjoys painting, and has worked on and off at the sign barn for years.

Here’s a photo progression of the veggie scene – painted with acrylic paints.

Next up, “chapter 3” of “Painting for the Oregon Country Fair”.