Exhibition Comments

Yes, I know it's been ages (again) since I last posted, but no, I haven't given up, and no, I haven't died! I have been a little poorly just lately though and I haven't felt up to doing much (sympathy most welcome); I haven't even got round to photographing my drawing from my third life drawing class, which was over two weeks ago!

Today was the last day of our exhibition and we took it down this afternoon. I said from the start that I didn't expect to sell anything but that if I received some nice comments I would be happy. Here are the comments that were written in my little comments book, unabridged and unedited! And at least two of them were by people I don't know!

Modern subdued colours in tune with current interior decors. "Footprints" canvas makes a statement!
C.A.A

The pictures are wonderful. I think Linda must have a warm heart and big breast. x
S.S.W

I love the effective yet simplistic feel you give. Leaf is a great contrast of colours and shapes. Rise gives a lovely feel of evening just beyond. Bulrushes is simple and definitely a statement of "less is more"!! Footprints is just simply "AMAZING". Very talented. x x x

I love your paintings Linda! I really can't believe how good/talented you are!
Lots of love Anne

Nice.
Robin

Hi Linda it's Serena! Wow, you're very talented! They're all amazing, but my favourite is "Footprints in the Sand". I love the way you've done it. Keep up the good work.
love Serena x x

Really like the Rise. Well done.
Sylvia C

I enjoy your work very. Keep good work up. Like the footprint in sand.
Sandra

Really like "Footprints in the Sand". Very realistic and I like the 3D effect.
Kayleigh :)

I like all your colours, but I especially love the BLUES in your paintings. Overall they're paintings that make you keep looking at them over and over again to capture their meaning and effect. Well done.
Joe A

My confidence has been quite low again recently, and I can't help feeling that the last person who commented was looking at someone else's paintings!

Anita sold one of her paintings, which is a great result for our first exhibition! Our next exhibition is in two weeks time, in the bar/restaurant area of an Arts Centre. We're both hoping to have something new to include by then.

Undaunted, wherefore art thou?

I'm here, just pottering around and not really accomplishing very much.

After my last post I spent some time 'phoning around for exhibition space for Anita and I. We now have something lined up for the last two weeks in September, and possibly longer, in the bar/restaurant area of an arts centre. We haven't seen the venue yet, but we plan to have a look around sometime soon. We have some other possibilities for next year, but unfortunately a lot of places are already booked up for the rest of this year, and some places are booked until 2010!

In saying that, we have now both joined the Fellowship for Professional and Amateur Artists, which is a local organisation, and this opens up other opportunities for us to exhibit with other artists. There is a two day exhibition coming up in the first week of September, and I believe another coming up in November. I'll know more when I receive the news letter.

I went to another life drawing class last Wednesday, which I will post about next, and Anita and I did a "meet the artist" thing at the library on Saturday. I think it's fair to say that it was a bit of disaster! One man started talking to us who was extremely loud and he seemed to scare everyone else away! We didn't know how to get rid of him! Then another man came along to join our conversation and Anita and I used the opportunity to escape for a brew! After all, we are the Escape Artists! As we sat in Costa Coffee we saw the two men walk past, still engrossed in conversation - we could see it was the start of a beautiful friendship, and our art had brought them together!

Apart from that I have been working on my blanket which I started crocheting last winter. Oh no. Did I say the W word? Yes I did. I think our summer is well and truly over. The weather we are experiencing now is more like mid October weather.

Wake me up in the spring!

In other news...

I eventually finished the painting I was working on for hubby, which was based on an early found art piece. The original piece was called "Dawn on the blue planet" and showed the earth only half lit and half in darkness. I couldn't be bothered to colour the whole piece of paper black, so I just did a black circle, and my husband thought it looked like the reflection of the earth in the pupil of an eye and asked me to paint it for him. So here it is, called "World in My Eyes". (The stripes in the sea shouldn't be there (sorry to disappoint you!) I can only presume I had a finger print on my lens or something!)




I painted the world half lit and half in darkness to start with, but I didn't like the angle of the shade so I started again. Then it wasn't central in the pupil, so I started it again! By this time hubby decided that he wanted the whole earth to be visible. I realise that as a reflection the earth should actually be the other way round, but hubby wanted it this way, and I aim to please!

I have also been working on another painting, which again is based on a found art piece. It should have been finished by now but after painting the entire background green I decided I didn't like it, so I repainted it white! It still looks a bit patchy at the moment, and then Anita threw a spanner in the works by saying I should paint the background another colour rather than just leaving it white, so I'm really undecided about it now.


And even more news...

Anita and I have decided to look for other venues to exhibit at. The theory is that if we can just keep moving our paintings from one venue to the next then we won't have them cluttering up our homes as our collection grows! (Although I happen to like my own paintings, but I will run out of wall space eventually!)

Look What the Postman Brought Me!

Ok, I cheated - I kept forgetting to photograph my book, so I took the image from Amazon.com, where you can also buy it.

I bought this book on the recommendation of Cynthia, and I have to say, it looks amazing! Not only does it explain the properties of different types of clay, list firing temperatures, and recipes for glazes, but it also tells you how to build your own kiln! Hmmm... yes, I think an eight foot square kiln built of bricks would look rather nice in the garden... and it would make a great barbeque! I could just throw a few chops in there while I'm waiting for it to cool down...

So I'm glad that came before my ceramics course starts in September. I've also bought some atrixo hand cream, which my sister absolutely swears by, in preparation for the dry hands that I'm going to get!

My Exhibition is Up!

Today Anita and I put up our exhibition at the local library. Thankfully everything ran smoothly and we were finished in a little over two hours. We really didn't know how long it was going to take us, and due to having another appointment in the afternoon, it was tempting to just hang the pieces straight up without covering the wall space behind. But, I make no exaggeration when I say that this drab and dreary background did nothing for our paintings except completely drain them of colour.


Thankfully we hadn't got too far along before we decided that putting the paper table cloths up was a good idea after all. Ok, so they're creased, but it still looks a whole lot better than the snagged, marked, dingy fabric with holes in that we covered up! I should have taken a before and after photo, as the difference to the pieces with a plain white background was quite remarkable.


After calculating the length of our wall space and the width of our paintings, we decided there would be room for me to include all three triptychs and my Footprints piece!


To the left of my triptychs hung four of Anita's lovely abstract pieces, depicting relationships. Here are three of them...


...and the farthest left of those, next to her beautiful paintings about emotions.


We obviously spread out our tools etc. on two of the nearby tables, and Anita noticed one man was getting a bit huffy about that, to which I replied "Tough. He'll have to get over it. The whole library is filled with tables and we are using the only two right next to where we are working. He can go and find another table!" I mean honestly, would he get in a huff if we had spread books out over the tables for research? The library doesn't exist solely for him!

Anita is displaying nine pieces in total, and I have four, so it isn't a huge exhibition, but it's a start! I just know that people are going to totally love Anita's saxophone player, shown below, second from the left. (Click to enlarge)



And now we wait, to see if we get any positive feedback. I've seen other exhibitions here before, but people don't usually put up anything to cover the background, so I hope the clean fresh feel we have created will attract the attention of others. I think we have our pieces spaced out quite nicely too - I have seen exhibitions here that have been really crammed in, which I think then detracts from the pieces. So what do you think?