NEWS! First Painting Sold for $3

. . . the biggest $3 I've ever received in my life.

Which now results in a long post with no pictures:

In yesterday's mail was a notice that said a small
exhibition where I was going to show my paintings
for the first time (end of July) was canceled
because there was not enough interest from other
artists in participating. That had been a major
iron in the fire for me and now it was gone. I sunk
myself into the couch and, thoroughly depressed,
ended up in a hour-long nap.

A few hours after this, I went in to St. Albans
to tend the STAART gallery from 4-6 because
my friend Ellen had a gig in Greensboro so she
couldn't finish her whole gallery stint.

It was pouring down rain there and I was settling in
for a quiet two hours of mucking about with watercolor
when a whole herd of folks walked in -- 4 adults in the
25-35 something range with a baby, and two older adults.

They meandered and then the older couple (from Boston)
stopped at the counter where my stuff was spread out,
indicating some kind of interest. So I flipped open
the cigar box with all my watercolors in it and asked
the guy if he painted. He said a little, but nodded
toward his wife, who was looking at my colors and saying
"yes" about an interest in colors.

I remembered that I had a cheap little photo album where
I keep the things that are going to be for sale as
one-of-a-kind postcards. I whipped it out of my pocket
while talking about making things that people would buy
and flipped the pages. She said she wanted to see, so
I flipped through it more slowly.

Several times they murmured approval with a couple of,
"interesting, let me see" and the like, while I'm babbling
on about colors, etc.

Then she said, "Can I buy that one? And will you sign it?"

This caught me completely off guard as I had only that
morning been making labels for them; I was planning on
taking pictures of them this week as I'll be selling them
in the park next Saturday.

I pointed to the two prominent colors in it as I babbled on about
them--Vermilion and Hooker's green. She asked what the
background wash was: Prussian Blue.

I was jumping up and down and telling her how incredibly exciting
this was for me because it was the first painting I'd sold.
I said I needed to know her name. She seemed a bit hesitant,
but wrote out her name in a URL on my scratch paper.

So, I sold it to her for $3 and told her I didn't have
a picture of it. She said she'd send me a jpg if I sent
her my email address.

I then told her that I'd come at painting from an obsession with
color and pushed Ball's Bright Earth across the counter to her,
while saying that I was now into my second reading of it.
She flipped through it and wrote the info in her notebook.

As they left, she said, "Keep on."

I immediately jumped on the internet and when her resume
came up I nearly fell off the stool.

Out of deference to her, I am not including the link without
her permission. I'm at the bottom, she's at the top and I
understand what might be a reluctance for the link.

So, I'm over the moon (a Jaune Brillant #1 one, to be sure) on this.

And, ever so deliciously, I'm savoring the glow from my
three Boston dollars! And, even more deliciously, the
source of those dollars.