Frozen Fingers

Woke at 3am this morning and found embers still burning in the Lady Kitchener so threw another log on the fire which kept it burning until daybreak. Just as well as when I pulled the curtains all I could see was a steely grey sky and white iced grass. Terribly hard to get out of bed but Glenys was calling early so we could do some exhibition stuff before portraiture. When she arrived she informed me that we'd had an 11oC frost and although it was nearly 8.45am the air temperature was only 1oC.

We arrived early at Otane finally beating Helen who is usually the first there. However our glee was short lived when we realised we'd be walking into a freezing cold building. Helen arrived just behind us and within five minutes had the gas fires going with us huddled around them moaning and rubbing our hands. Soon as we'd thawed out a little I went to lift the bricks off my loose fairy and was pleased to see she'd finally stuck down. I also gave Glenys the extra labels I'd printed out for our exhibition's guest artist Shirley Vogtherr's paintings. At this stage there is nothing more we can do although I am still going to make some smaller things for the cash and carry table as I am convinced that people are going to buy cheaper things due to the economy. But I have been known to be wrong before- quite often in fact!

Our model was a motel owner from Waipukurau and an excellent subject she proved to be sitting stock still although what she thought of our conversation is anyone's guess. This is my favourite drawing of her using the charcoal background and rubbing out the highlights. This was very useful for showing up the softness of her cardigan as well as the different tones of her hair. I think it would also be interesting to try drawing just a face with this technique, especially one with a strong light source coming from the side.