Fiona Long Art

Collaborative Birthday Painting

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

I had great fun last night doing a painting event. It was the 40th birthday party of a lovely lady called Fiona (great name!). The theme of the party was black and white. She and her husband Stephen have just moved into a beautiful large new home and needed some artwork to fill the walls. So, as a reminder of the evening, and her guests at the party, Fiona requested a painting that everyone could join in with. So I came up with the idea of these four large canvasses in black and white (+ silver and grey) to suit the theme of the party as collaborations straight onto a blank canvas just don’t work. I painted rectangles of various shapes and sizes for people to then add a drawing to in black or silver pen. I thought that paint would be rather too messy for all the guests in their finery! Having a rectangle to draw onto enhanced and framed each drawing. It was also interesting to see who picked which rectangle…a further display of their personalities beyond just the drawing by the size of the space they chose, where it was positioned and how ingenious their use of the space was. The drawings were based on how Fiona knows the guests so perhaps a great day out together, an anecdote she’d remember them by, how they met, a hobby they share, something distinctive about them as a person and so on.

It was a wonderful evening and it was so much fun encouraging people to draw who were initially shy about it or in some cases, hadn’t drawn anything for decades! Everyone did such a good job! The canvasses looked great and I hope that they will be enjoyed for many, many years to come.