GARETT pt. 1

 Sometimes I look up,smile,and say, 

‘I know that was you.’

 - Tracy Tull 

 Aspirations 

Garett Colona was an inquisitive young man, full of energy and ideas, with a great sense of humor. He was an awesome son who loved the outdoors – farming, trapping, and flying. Garett’s goal was to become an agricultural pilot. Sadly, I never knew Garett - his untimely death, in 2012, prevented that. 

Each year, Garett’s family pays tribute to him by holding a benefit, Garett's Gift, Inc. Besides keeping his memory alive, the benefit also raises money to bless the lives of others. It was my honor to donate artwork for this worthwhile cause for the last two consecutive years. Below is one of the two pieces of artwork I donated. On Friday, June 9th, which would have been Garett's 28th birthday, I will share more about Garett and about Garett's Gift, Inc. 

 How to: 

To begin, I gessoed an 8” x 10” canvas using Liquitex professional gesso. After drying, I painted a mixture of neutral gray value 5 (Liquitex Basics) with the gesso to get a soft tone. Next, I stenciled Rembrandt’s Words (StencilGirl) with the neutral gray value 5 from the tube. For the nest, I used matte medium (Liquitex) to adhere strips of text from an old hymnal in a circular fashion. I painted burnt sienna, raw sienna, and ivory black (Liquitex Basics) for the nest; and lily pad (Anita’s All Purpose Acrylic Craft Paint) for the leaves.

After sketching the bird onto pattered scrapbook paper, I used the same paints as for the nest mixing them with gesso to get the tones and shading I wanted. After it dried, I added detail with a black Uni-ball Signo pen. I painted the eggs onto the same paper using Jamaican sea, spa blue, and lily pad (Anita’s) and gesso. I outlined the eggs using water and a Stabilo All pencil (Hobby Lobby). I fussy cut the bird and eggs and auditioned them along with some printed tissue paper on the nest to see how they would work out. 

To give the nest more dimension, I adhered brown and tan tissue paper with matte medium. Inside the nest, I adhered tiny scraps of the same patterned scrapbook paper that I used for the bird and the eggs; and because it was so white, I added more tissue paper to blend it.

 

For the leaves, I cut pages from a thesaurus that had been previously painted with lily pad, and adhered with matte medium.

For extra detailing, I stamped a script stamp with gray PAD (Ranger) onto the gray background.

Lastly, the quote was printed onto resume paper, fussy cut, and glued to the patterned scrapbook paper which was fussy cut and glued to the canvas.

Loosing someone is so hard; but keeping their memory alive is easy. Thinking and talking about them, laughing about fun times, and sharing their memory with those that never knew them are small but necessary ways to remember them. I didn’t know Garett, but through my artwork, hanging in its new home, I know the owner will remember a young man who is sorely missed and dearly loved. I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and will join me every Tuesday and Friday for more blog posts at arteverydaystudio.blogspot.com.

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