Interviewed!

Just a quick link today. Last week I was interviewed by Hannah Robinson, illustrator for her blog. She was gracious and lovely, and for anyone who wants to read the answers I gave to her fun and interesting questions please click here.

It's a great read, the part where I relate wrestling that escaped tiger to the ground in Waitrose car park is especially good...

Summer Days Out and Winter Snow Scenes

Despite it being summer, an artist is always working ahead, and the next big lot of exhibitions are in October. Foremost in my mind is Visions of Sudbury, which is run every two years in St Peters in the centre of Sudbury. It is open to amateurs and professionals, 2 works can be entered, any medium, but it must depict, well, Sudbury. Wanting to make an impact this year I set about getting bigger boards cut, and for the first work decided on a picture of a frozen stream from a photo I took in last year's snow falls. It's a classic view of the coloured cottages near the Mill Hotel, and normally I avoid painting them as they tend to look too twee for my tastes. But I liked the look of them in the snow, so here it is, 50cm square, and I am about to start another, similar size, but in landscape format of a slightly different view of the meadows, with the cattle on. Big is beautiful they say, so we shall see...

It was somewhat surreal painting snow in the sun, but at least Gimlet knew what to do. He found the perfect sun protector in the form of the huge Rhubarb leaves by the studio...

The teen is enjoying her hols, and after 10 days with the grandparents stopped off home to pick up her passport for a trip to Holland with her father. She was home less than 24 hours and didn't even unpack. "you might as well have just driven past slowly and waved!" I said... It is gsce results time this week, and I have instructions to collect them and text my daughter. I am dreading this chore; if the tv news is to be believed I will be surrounded by alternately screeching and sobbing teenagers. I aim to get in and out fast, before the endemic hysteria gets to me. 

The trips out with Saturday class members continued with our visit to the Tate Britain Watercolour Exhibition. Myself and 5 others traveled to London, organised by one of my students (also a policeman!) He did a fine job of keeping 5 chattering women under control as we made our way into London. Even before we got to the Tate there was art all around us. Even seemingly boring buildings were dripping with interesting details when you looked closely:

Photos were forbidden in the actual exhibition, but I can recommend it, the works were stunning and spanned several centuries and many styles. My only disappointment was with the 'modern' works; a plastic teaspoon dipped in paint and mounted on the wall, a couple of twigs smeared with Gouache... as usual the many and varied modern works in this medium were ignored in favour of the infamous like Tracy Emin, who had four small watercolours. Each looked like the marks left if I don't wipe up after making coffee, but then what do I know?

Next after our jaunt into London, and closer to home was Polstead Church. A fabulous place to paint, I regretted that I only had time for a sketch and some photos before I had to return to teach a private student in the studio. But I hope to return to the subject. Here was the view:

The gravestones were fascinating, and someone immediately spotted a small stone and poem dedicated to ornithologist and bird mimic Percy Edwards.

Meanwhile at home it is all change, and whilst waiting for his next set of training courses to start, boyfriend has been preparing for our extension build. Part of this is our plan to knock down the kitchen wall to change to poky kitchen into a large kitchen/diner. The wall came down fine, and the only problem is the old gas pipe it left behind, which a plumber will need to deal with:

 

So now we have a trench in the middle of the floor, and a pipe sticking up. But I really don't care, the kitchen simply can't get any worse, and the bigger space is exciting after the tiny kitchen. Onwards and upwards!

Farm yard fun!

No it's not an Emu, an Ostrich or a Dodo... it's a Rhea!

On Saturday my weekly class had their first informal meet up for untutored painting, face stuffing and general silliness. We were invited by the lovely people at Assington Farm Shop/Artisans Tea Rooms. There were noisy geese, a sweet pigmy goat, some cows and best of all the Rhea's who were very amusing. They did not keep still for a second, and pecked curiously at anything that got too close, including my camera and drawing board. I could only stay for a couple of hours due to having some private students to teach in the afternoon. But after walking up and down, imploring the big birds to "stand still" or "move that back foot" I managed a sketch, and after an hour had a passable watercolour sketch (unfinished.)

Back in the studio I have been making mosaics and now have three small ones to add to my exhibition tally:

A blue heart:

A butterfly with grey grout:

And a panel with sea shells and cream grout:

Finally time to share some other people's art; and here is a fabulous collage from one of my Saturday Students:

 Started in pastels, but L always gets carried away into the world of mixed media and can never resist trying something a little different, this time using some pictures of local allotments to add to her painting and the result was really successful.

L is a teacher at the Ryes School for troubled and vulnerable children and teens, and here is a painting by Rody, who has much difficulty focusing and concentrating. Apparently it took about a month of working in little 5 minute slots until it was done. He can be very proud of the results. 

Hollyhocks Done!

The above title should be read in the style of Gordon Ramsay obviously...

 
Just a quick post to show my latest painting. Started at Layer Marney Towers on Art Sunday, I painted the purple, white and dark pink flowers in situ, the leaves, foliage and pale pink flowers were added from photos and reference material, the background and sky came out of my imagination.

Overall I am pleased with it, I have not often managed to do these type of backgrounds successfully, so it was a bit of a risk, but I am (for good or bad) a bit of a risk taker, so after a bit of umming and some aahing I just went for it. It continues on from my last painting of the tree up close with landscape behind, a composition that always interests me. The flowers were more successful for being done from life; and the finished work will be heading for the framers shortly. I am very relieved to have a painting finished, after all the weeks of illustrating, as several exhibitions loom. Just got to do another 10 or so now, onwards and upwards...

Thunderbugs are go!

I don't know what they call them in your part of the woods; when I lived in the Midlands they called them Harvest mites, here in Suffolk they call them Thunderbugs, in tribute to their appearance on particularly hot, humid days. I am talking about the little creatures that look like a short black 1mm pen mark, and there is no defence against them.

A week or so ago, we were in the middle of roasting temperatures, and in the studio it got up to 36 degrees. A little too hot of course, but as someone who complains about the cold for 99% of the year, I feel I should grin and bear it. I opened the doors and windows in the studio to let the air in, drank plenty of water and all was fine. Until they arrived.


They started in ones  and twos, landing on the paper I was working on, then irritating me by crawling over my face. By lunchtime they were marching in and out of the paint, across my glasses, and crawling over my arms and through my hair. The itching was unbearable, I was swearing loudly and on any other day I would have made a quick exit, but I was on a deadline for a set of illustrations of Milan:

Lots of smart buildings and statues...

 Italian cars, scooter riders and of course Polizia...

And whilst Thunderbugs are annoying, they are too small to damage the artwork, although my oil painter friend has had far greater problems of course, oil paint being so sticky. By 4pm the work was finished and so was I. Running into the house I filled the sink with water, and splashed it over my face and arms, it ran down my t-shirt in dark patches, making my hair stick up, but I didn't care. As I walked into the kitchen the teen entered with a friend who had come for tea, and exchanged 'Mad Woman' looks.


Finished at last!

Rain the next day dampened them down, although I am still finding dead ones on every surface in the studio. 


Last Sunday I went with two of my students to paint in Layer Marney Tower grounds, near Colchester. 

Deciding I would not have time to do the building, I sat down near a selection of beautiful Hollihocks in the flowerbed and attempted to do them justice. Again the Thunderbugs arrived... After a couple of hours we decided to go and look around and talk to the artists exhibiting indoors. I had been invited to display work/demonstrate inside the long gallery, but had declined due to most of my artwork being displayed elsewhere. I enjoyed talking to the other artists, some of who I know, but the most striking thing was the absence of Thunderbugs indoors... I am pretty sure where I will be next year, and it won't be in the flowerbeds!


The painting of Hollihocks is still work in progress, and after a few days doing some additional illustrations for the previous Cardiff project, needed to appease the Welsh Tourist Board (who seem rather fussy), I am looking forward to finishing my flower painting.

Teenisms

The teen grows ever more intelligent and literate, having now mastered sarcasm, snide and presently studying irony. However, sometimes she just gets words wrong, usually during dinner time conversations, to hilarious effect. I couldn't let the following go unpublished:

The teen on ancient history:

"...you know, in Egypt, during the time of the fairies..."

On her desire to receive regular copies of her favourite science magazine:

"When are you going to get me a prescription to that magazine??"

And finally a surreal one: When being handed her dinner of fried rice and vegetables:

"Aaw, not casserole AGAIN" (followed quick as a flash by boyfriend "Aaw not Duck a L'orange' AGAIN...)

It is remarks like this keep us all laughing during dinner.

Back with work, I have had my first success during the summer round of exhibiting: the first sale of one of my set of Pied Wagtail Monoprints. Stupidly and rarely for me, I forgot to photograph the one that sold, something I am normally quite obsessive about, but this one is similar, the sold one had a background of yellow netting if I recall. The sale came from the Rotary Club exhibition in St Peters church in the centre of Sudbury, and the commission will go towards charities supported by the Rotarians. I made 19 of these, each slightly different so lets hope for more sales another before the summer is out!

 On the illustrating front I am just waiting to see the finished product for the Cardiff Illustrations I produced; it has to be approved by the Welsh Tourist Board first! Meantime I am gearing up for the next one; Milan is heading my way shortly... perhaps a little more glamorous than Cardiff, but since I have never visited either I couldn't say for sure, hmm.

I guess the Cardiff Opera is quite glam, here was my take on it:

It will be interesting to see what comes my way for Milan, I am betting I will have to do a footie fan, I they seem to be a requirement, and Milan seems to be football mad...

People in glass houses should probably wear contact lenses...

Now friends and relatives will not know me as a risk taker, but it has been bought to my attention recently that I am being irresponsible and endangering my health. This revelation came about on a trip to a local optician. Needing a spare pair of specs, and not liking any of the frames in my regular place I defected to the premises down the road. I chose a pair of frames and went to select the lenses, and that's when the trouble started. "Right," I said "I don't want plastic, I want glass." 

Now plastic is more usual these days as it is cheaper, lightweight and easier to glaze, particularly with the high density lenses I am forced to have in order not to look like I am peering through pint glass bottoms.  But the problem is, that on the one occasion I had plastic lenses they gave me all sorts of trouble. Unlike glass you cannot bung them under the tap and clean them with a bit of kitchen paper (this scratches them to bits), you need a special cloth, which has to be carried everywhere, and hairspray and perfume stick to plastic and can't be polished out. So back to glass I went.

"We don't recommend glass" said the assistant, attempting to scare me with stories involving (mainly) me crashing my car and all the glass going in my eyes. "I don't know why people want glass lenses, its soo dangerous" said the receptionist to a colleague behind the screen next to me, knowing I could hear her. Next time she walked past I glared at her, thinking uncharitable thoughts like 'I bet she smokes 40 a day.'
 
In the end I explained that as a non-smoking tee-total vegetarian who did no contact sports and hated roller coasters I doubted wearing glasses made of glass (as I have since age 12) was overly dangerous. They tutted and I left the shop.

Back home I planned to start a large still life with a starfish and glass jars, but sadly found all my big boards had been used and I didn't have any more paper stretched. So grabbing the only (small) board I had available, I started a painting of some purple Irises that flowered in my garden a few weeks ago. I never do flowers from photos, but as I had an unusually clear picture, I gave it a go, and was quite pleased with the results.

May ended with one little sale, a mosaic I completed a few months ago, and put into a gallery in Bury. When I dropped it off the owner said "That will sell"  so obviously knows her customers well!

Finally this week the teen has started 'Study Leave'. This basically means they kick them out until 6th form in September, they just go in for GCSE's.  Its a mad policy, as the teen will work diligently at school, but once home can barely be bothered to leave the bed and feed herself toast. Just to exercise her I dragged her into town for a walk. We went back to my original opticians who had some new styles in, chose a couple and arranged for glass lenses to be fitted.  In the opticians the lady apologised as there was no chair for the teen. "Are you joking?" I said, "she has been horizontal for 3 days, I am just getting her used to standing up..."