Working in my studio

This has been such a hectic week, I haven't managed to even think about my blog never mind write it. I had so many lovely visitors to my Open Studio, many from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Denmark, a few people from the UK dropped by too!

This photo is of the garden outside my studio, all the flowers are out and it is always a pleasure having this little view.

Today I was helping at a fund raising event in the village and although I now feel like putting my feet up, I thought you might have been wondering if I had stopped painting! Or gone into a summer hibernation.

I am now working on my next book to be published in March 2014, I will be concentrating on this for the rest of this month apart from a few demos and a very exciting trip to Wimbledon planned. I am hoping for sunshine so I can people watch and collect ideas for people paintings.
This is the latest painting I am working on. Not a good photo but you get the idea.

 

Back home after Patchings

I had a great 4 days at the Patchings Art show and met so many talented artists.

It was so nice to chat to Ken Howard again, the last time we painted together was in Greece for a week last year. Ann Blockley lives so close to me that we are meeting up soon which will be good. I met Haidee-Jo Summers after tweeting all year which was lovely, and managed to catch up with Peter Barker again, I try and use my short breaks in the demo schedule to dash around and say hello to other artists but never get the chance to see as many as I would like.

The demos went very well with a full marquee each day. We were also blessed with a good deal of sunshine and NO rain - wonderful! Chas did a wonderful job organising it all and I have been invited to return next year and demonstrate again for the Artist and Leisure Painter magazine in their marquee.

happy crowds

I did 5 demos each day, each took approx. 30 minutes, here are three of them

me demonstrating

first demo in watercolour

 

another using watercolour and acrylics

another using watercolour and pastel.



 

Preparing for the Patchings Art Show

Reflections  at Whitby

I have been planning my demos for the Patchings Art show 6th - 9th June.

This is probably the nicest show of the year that I do, there is always a great atmosphere, a band, lots of keen painters and so much for everyone to see. Of course, I am in a marquee (The Artist Publishing marquee Number 11) most of the time so I don't get to see it all, but on the set up day, I try to rush about and say hello to all the artists I have met here over the years.
This year my demos have been inspired by my trip to Cornwall in May, so I have drawn 20 paintings which I will complete over the 4 days. Yes 20, that is not a typo! I have about half an hour for each one, so they need to be fast and fairly simple. Bearing in mind that there may be 100 people all crammed into the marquee, the people at the back need to see something interesting as well as the people on the front row, so its no good fiddling about with a Rigger brush!  I also need to use a variety of mediums, supplied by Daler, so I will be using, watercolours, acrylic ink, various acrylics and pastels (although not all at the same time)

This is one of the paintings I shall be using as a reference for one of my demos.  (its the only one I will be doing which is not from Cornwall) I might tackle it in watercolour or inks, it just depends on what I feel like doing on the day.

My demo times are 10.30am, 11.30am, 1pm, 2.30pm, 3.30pm so do come and say hello if you can.