Weaver Street Market

“Picnic at Weaver Street Market”
7 x 10" watercolor

Here’s the second painting I did last Saturday when I had all but given up on finding a cool enough place to paint. Weaver Street Market*, the building you see in back of the trees was just voted an Outdoor Dining finalist by the central North Carolina tabloid, Independent Weekly. Not bad, considering the Market is a place one needs to wait on oneself cafeteria-style. On the other hand, how many places do you know where you can run in, get a bottle of wine, then go picnic with it outside?

The people in my painting were not posed, but constantly moving, always a challenge when I paint in this calligraphic style. Reason being? — This style painting is a two-step process in which the ground colors need to dry before the calligraphic lines are put in for definition. I always keep my brushes crossed in hopes my subject matter won’t walk, run, or drive off between paint applications.

A friend asked how old these people are. Can’t you see the wine bottles? Young adults. “They look like children, not adults,” she commented. Well, this may not be the case for my friend (who happens to be older than I am), but to me, young people are all beginning to look like children. It has occurred to me that someday the President of this country will look like a child to me, and this I may find totally disconcerting.

* Go to Weaver Street Market’s home page on its web site and you’ll see a watercolor created in Photoshop of an outdoor scene not too unlike the one I painted.