THE TWO DAY INVITATIONAL FAIR AND COUNTRY MERCANTILE

Well, the awaited weekend has come and gone. The Two Day Invitational Fair and Old Fashioned Mercantile is over. To say the least, it was a unique experience. We had wonderful weather although it was a little hotter on Saturday that I cared for. The weather on Sunday was excellent. I got to meet many interesting and wonderful people which was worth the two days all in itself.There were many interesting vendors there.

ON A BRANCH HANDMADE SOAP proprietor Tara Patey

TAKEN FOR GRANITE

RIVERS' WATERCOLOURS

and our musical buskers who did wonderful renditions of Neil Young songs!

 I was absolutely thrilled by the support that I received from friends and family, especially on Saturday. My granddaughter had an especially good time. She got to see and pet a live horse for the first time in her life. She also seemed to be completely enthralled with the young man playing the bagpipes. she wanted to follow him all around the village green. I want to give a special thanks to our neighbours at the fair, Christine and Dave proprietors of The Stones of Time, who generously lent us a tent when our tent failed to perform as expected. We would have been burnt to a crisp without the their tent.

Aside for the many wonderful vendors at the fair there were many other events that took place.

There was apple bobbing.


The blacksmith's who were on the other side of me held demonstrations all through the show. They let children try their hand at blacksmithing. Each child made a hook and they got to keep it.

Of Course I did sell a few items over the two days. To my surprise, I sold more glass items than I did wood items which is interesting. I sold a glass elephant etching, a couple of stained glass icicles and a hand carved wooden mouse on Saturday and  I sold a wooden old fashioned Santa Claus on Sunday. Not too bad, all things being considered.

LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE MERMAID - THE TWO DAY INVITATIONAL COUNTRY CRAFT FAIR

When I travel, which is more often that I would like, I take something with me to work on. Sometimes it is drawings to work on or a study but most times I take a piece with me to work on. On my last trip to China I took two pieces  with me that were barely started. One piece was the one that I have come to call The Mermaid. I consider her to be the sister or at least a close cousin to The Siren. The other piece that I took with me was just a piece of wood at the time. I will leave that one for later. The reason that I took these two pieces with me is that I wanted to keep my momentum going on finishing pieces that I am preparing for the two day invitational Country Craft Fair and Old-Fashioned Market Mercantile. 


The interesting thing about the development of The Mermaid was that it became intertwined with the book that I was reading on Leonardo Da Vinci. I have written about Leonardo before when I published a post about the trip that I made with my wife, my son and his girlfriend to the Buffalo Science Museum to view the exhibit call Leonardo Da Vinci : Machines in Motion. the book on Leonardo that I was reading in China was called LEONARDO, by Martin Kemp. Martin Kemp is one of the greatest authorities on Leonardo Da Vinci  I was interested to read his insightful point of view on Leonardo's work.

I was not disappointed. Martin wrote about aspects of Leonardo's life that are usually not covered. He spent entire chapters discussing aspects of Leonardo's life and art that I have never read about before. At any rate, I will cover this book more fully in another post. It deserves a post of its own.

the point is that my imagination became so infused with art of Leonardo that I could see nothing else in my mind except the beautiful Madonnas that he painted. When I looked at the piece of wood that was going to become The Mermaid I saw the faces and the elegant poses of these Madonnas. As I developed the three studies I would eventually work from it became evident that I was using the painting of Lucrezia Crevelli, "La Belle Ferroniere", as my model.

Here are the studies that I did for The Mermaid.

At this point, The Mermaid was roughly carved. Only the major shapes were done. There was no detail.

Pretty neat wallpaper, isn't it?

I thought that the wallpaper in my hotel room went well with The Mermaid so I took a few pictures of her posing with the boats. It looks like she might capsize a few of them!

Here, she is almost finished. I still need to apply her final coat and them mount her onto base that I shaped to make her look like she is rising out of a wave. I will show that in another post.

I think The Mermaid will be an interesting piece at the Country Craft and Fair, that is unless someone snaps her up first!