Now That’s a Market! +

Wow!  OK, so if you have time to only go to one Christmas Market in Vienna, definitely go to the one in Karlplatz, in front of St. Charles Church.  There are over 80 booths/cabins filled with the handcrafted wares of juried artists and artisans.  Nothing junkie here.  Plus I’m told the organic mulled wine and the children’s activities here are better than anywhere else.  Again, I didn’t buy anything, but enjoyed immersing myself in the creative beauty.

I came across this market when our class exited from the subway after a fantastic afternoon in the studio of Micheal Fuchs (one of Ernst Fuchs’ sons, who is also a successful artist and teacher – as is Micheal’s son… talent runs in the family).  His studio is in a small historic town on the outskirts of Vienna.  I love field trips, plus I learned a lot about sight sizing portraits. Great stuff!

After a quick dinner, we all headed back to school for a painting party. Apart from the mulled wine, our party was just like class, but more chatty.  At about 11pm, it was finally my turn to get help putting my second glaze on my painting.  We opted for a magenta to keep it in the warm tones, but the colour that came out of the tube was much too red, and so we added blues and rose to try and achieve what Laurence was used to from his higher quality oil paints. The glaze went on much darker than I would have liked, obscuring my whites more than it did for other students (but it didn’t melt them away this time! yay!).  It’s true, I initially felt disappointed, but also calmly resigned (Laurence might disagree with this description)- trying to reserve judgment. I’ll just see where this painting goes and learn a lot in the process.   I did get to see how Laurence lifted glaze with the palm of his hand – the artist’s karate chop technique… probably not recommended for your health, but interesting.  I got home at midnight and not sure what I’ll be doing this weekend.  I’m open to spontaneous ideas.  First, breakfast.