Moving On......

Thanks to everyone who lent their support to yesterday's post - I'm glad it's not just me that thinks that's a bonkers way to run an exhibition. I got a more detailed explanation from one of the organisers today and it still makes no sense to me at all - I completely understand that they want to give new artists a chance and that space at the venue is very limited, but to cut people alphabetically? Selection committee, people, the clue is in the title. Apparently I can enter again next year.........great.


Anyway, enough of that, it's not good for my blood pressure! Here are some potatoes.....not just any potatoes though - I grew these! First time in my life growing spuds - aren't they pretty? And it was half an hour between getting them out of the earth and serving them on a plate for dinner. Yum!


I've been knitting this camisole top from a pattern in this month's The Knitter magazine. A bit complicated but well worth it - I just love the zig-zags & the way the cables make it pull in at the waist. I still have to sew in a bit of narrow elastic around the neck to stop it from gaping as the cotton is soft and flops a little. Considering this batch of yarn was £10 on eBay and has stretched to two summer tops, it was a real bargain.


Now that is finished, it is time to get back to knitting little creatures - depressing though the thought is, Christmas will be upon us quicker than we think and I need to be stocked up beforehand. So this little dog is the latest addition to the menagerie - he's a bit more butch than the pups I have been making lately. So butch in fact that he deserves a specially designed coat.....


.......although if he was really that tough, perhaps he wouldn't wear a coat!

He will be on Etsy as part of a set later in the week.


Don't forget that the giveaway - Eldritch the witch's cat - is still open and will remain open until the end of August. Click here to leave a comment and enter yourself in the draw.

'B' is for Barred

The past three years I have entered my paintings into the Best of Hampshire Artists exhibition held at Hillier Gardens in Romsey and had my work accepted. This year I am not allowed to even submit work....because my name begins with 'B'. Apparently, because so many new artists want to have a chance at entering, the committee have decided to omit anyone whose surnames begin with either 'A' or 'B' from even submitting a painting before the selection committee. Forgive me for thinking that the whole idea of a selection committee is to sort out the pictures they deem suitable for exhibition thus giving everyone a fair crack at it.

Also, how can the exhibition now be called 'Best of Hampshire Artists' - should there not be an additional line to the title '...excepting anyone whose name begins with A or B'? Hard luck Mr. Botticelli, Mr. Bacon and Mr. Burne-Jones, better luck next year maybe. Lucky you, Mr. Whistler and Mr. Watteau, you won't be excluded until the year 2022.

So I'm off to enter some of my work at the Mall Galleries in London where I can be accepted or rejected based on the quality of my work rather than where in the alphabet my name falls. That is the kind of rejection I can accept with grace and understanding, unlike this which leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Thank You Ikea!

Let's start with another flamingo - I wanted to paint one in watercolour, very simply and cleanly, and this is the result. Sometimes I prefer a non-fussy painting. I think this may be the last flamingo for a while.....or maybe not, I still have a few ideas in my head for those lovely reference photos.

Now prepare yourselves for a pretty awful sight - it's not something I'm proud of and I know I am not the tidiest person but this really is dreadful!


This is how the dining half of my kitchen has looked for a while now....we haven't been able to sit down to a meal at the table for....oh, I don't know how long - at Christmas I had to move all my craft boxes into the hall and bedroom in order for us to have a semblance of a civilised meal together. I knew what I wanted to do with it but never had the time what with the day job and those darned potato paintings. However, after a day of building my set of Billy bookcases, another day of moving everything out including that (very heavy) dresser and putting everything back again into the new shelves, and a couple of hours this morning for the final touches, it now looks like this -


It's not totally finished yet - there are still a few things to the left that need to have homes found for them, and under the table are a couple of boxes of photos and paperwork that need sorting out, but I think you'll agree it is 100% better. There is even a whole shelf and a half that need to be utilised properly - either that or it's an excuse to get some more books!

While sorting through the dresser drawers I came across a couple of little treasures I had lost - nothing valuable but they mean a lot to me.


My maternal grandfather was a sea-captain in World War I and I was always told the tale by my mother that he had travelled to the South Sea Islands and brought back this bag of cowrie shells that were the currency of the island he had visited. I don't know any more than that, but I used to run my fingers through this bag of shells when I was a child imagining where they had come from, who had touched them and how far they had travelled. I still do!


In 2000 I took my children to St. Lucia for a week's holiday - we were even poorer then than we are now, and I used some small savings to take them somewhere special as my son had just left school and it would probably be the last family holiday we would take. I found an amazing deal on Teletext (never to be repeated!) and off we went and had an amazing time on very little money indeed - we ate at KFC or made sandwiches from stuff we bought at the supermarket, and used what spare money we had to take a trip to the rainforest and see as much of the island as we could on a budget. When we boarded the return flight, the above is the exact amount of money we had left....64 Caribbean cents, which I think is about half that amount in US$. If there had been the Icelandic volcano back then, we would have starved to death!

Don't forget the giveaway - it will run until the end of August.

...All Free Today.......

It's time for all you lurkers and quiet people to come out of the woodwork and enter yourselves into a giveaway draw! Meet Eldritch, the witch's cat - just leave a comment with some means of getting back to you and you could win him, free and posted to wherever you are in the world.

When I bought some cat's eyes recently, in the packet were some red ones and I wondered at the time what on earth I could use them for - then the answer came, of course a witch's cat! He's been knitted in the super-soft Sirdar Gypsy eyelash yarn and stands about 4 inches high. His legs are wool jointed so he is fully poseable, and he has a red collar with a magic (!) crystal hanging from it.

I'll keep the draw open until the end of August, as I know that some people may be away on holiday - you lucky things!

The next few days are going to be very busy for me - I have bought a big set of bookshelves from Ikea in an attempt to tidy up our dining area which is currently wall to ceiling in craft materials, books, boxes and stuff. I was going to post a photo of it but I am so ashamed of the mess I shan't do that until I can also show a photo of the immaculate tidiness that I have achieved.......or not!

Pretty Flamingoes!

Finally finished this - it took a very long time, partly due to the subject matter and partly due t0 sheer exhaustion at the end of term. It is painted in acrylics on a stretched canvas - not my favourite of surfaces, but I had one that needed using up! I used a compilation of photographs kindly given to me by Alison as reference....I have a feeling a couple may be the same bird in different positions, but hey, a flamingo is a flamingo is a flamingo!

Not too sure what to paint now - I've been let down recently regarding a few prospective commissions, so I guess it's time to get some private work done for future exhibitons. I do wish that people had the courtesy to get in touch if they change their minds about commissioning a painting - it seems to be quite a common consensus that being an artist isn't a serious job, just something we dabble in, and that we don't depend on the income generated by our daubings. On the contrary - if you are counting on three commissions over the coming month and they all disappear, that is quite a chunk of money to miss out on. This is the main reason I can't afford to give up the day job!

While I'm on the subject, another thing that really gets me mad is the intake of breath when you tell someone the price of something you have created/are about to create. If you calculate the cost of materials, time taken, as well as the knowledge and expertise involved, I think you'll find that a great many artists and craftspeople work for far below minimum wage per hour. I could rant on, including the cavalier attitude some companies and individuals have towards paying for artwork on time.....but I won't! Suffice it to say, the image of a starving artist in a garret isn't too far removed from the truth on occasion!!

.....and relax!

Just to let you know, the next post will be containing a give-away - he's all ready, sitting on the desk waiting for his photo to be taken......

Got It!

.....the photograph that is, not a goose! This morning the geese were back on the fields, but most of them were already flying off - no doubt due to another dog walker coming from the other side.


However, there were still some left waddling about next to the playing field........


....'Hello......what's all this?'


The geese were fairly unconcerned, I think they remembered him as not being much of a threat....


....silly geese, he hadn't had his breakfast yet this morning, so was up for a chase!



Not that he had any chance of catching a goose - they are far too quick for him and just took off in a leisurely fashion without even making a honk.


It did make for some wonderful photographs though - I always feel very privileged to own a saluki as when you see them in action it really is something special. I rarely have my camera with me though or if I do, he is far too fast for me to snap anything other than a speck in the distance. Today I was prepared for once and finally got my reward.

Just in case anyone is worried, no geese were harmed or even slightly traumatised...they just wheeled around in the sky and landed the other side of the hill to continue grazing, while Clovis trotted off to sniff some rabbit holes. Then we went home for breakfast..........


....yum! I love the summer holidays and having the time to cook - these are blueberries from the garden!

I'm preparing a giveaway - seems about time for another one. He just needs some legs.........

A Grand Day Out & Some Wild Geese

Yesterday we spent the day in London, visiting the National Gallery to see their Fakes, Mistakes & Discoveries exhibit. I took my camera along, but was not very good at getting any photographs as I was too busy looking at everything! We passed through Trafalgar Square as the gallery is at the top - on the 'spare' plinth there is currently a huge ship in a bottle which I thought was pretty cool. The bottle itself must be about 10 ft long and I would love to know how it was made.


Stacie posed in front of the fountains......

Then there is a very large gap between photographs! The exhibit we went to see was very interesting, many paintings that had been discovered to be fakes or even a genuine article that was nearly discarded as a fake. Some lovely paintings had been 'improved' by restorers over the years - one seductive lady had had her nipples painted out and her expression made far more demure by some prudish Victorian! Luckily the present day restorers have managed to bring her back to her original condition.

After that, we took my daughter to see the Van Gogh paintings - she has developed an interest after watching that episode of Dr.Who! I absolutely love the wing where the Van Gogh's are - I'm practically running to and fro inbetween my favourite paintings of all time - Stubbs' Whistlejacket, Monet's Water Lilies, Renoir's The Umbrellas, Delaroche's The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, and so many more. Stacie was transfixed to see the Sunflowers in real life - apparently that was the best part of the day.


I couldn't resist buying a Van Gogh finger puppet.....perhaps if I wear it while painting I'll get some inspiration......he has both his ears here, so obviously Van Gogh from a happier time!


On the way home, walking across Hungerford Bridge, looking down we saw on the South Bank this lady painting on some enormous canvases on the ground. Lovely work - I wonder what she will do with them when they are completed?


Also saw this 'city' made entirely from painted bricks - not too sure what the display was in aid of, something to do with Brazil! It was a lot of fun though.

Since they harvested the barley in the fields behind our house, large flocks of geese have come to graze on the spilled grain.



It's wonderful to walk along and see these big birds in such numbers, honking quietly at our passing.


I've got a bit of a confession though - since seeing a labrador go crashing through these geese last year and making them all fly away in a spectacular fashion, I keep hoping my dog will do the same and I will get a fantastic photo. No such luck - he is totally uninterested.


I just have to wait until they fly away by themselves, which isn't nearly as exciting to watch but still pretty good.