A Splash of Paint

The middle of May, and finally the central heating has been turned off. Last weekend heralded the warmest few days of the year so far and, typically, I could not enjoy them as much as I would have liked. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, it’s just that the weekend happened to be the very same as my art group’s annual art exhibition, its 28th, and I had volunteered to be one of the stewards for all day Saturday.

Admiring the paintings
(the snow scene is one of mine!)

This year, our chosen charity to benefit from the entry fee, refreshment table sales, raffle, and a percentage of paintings sold is Freewheelers EVS – a voluntary organization in SW England who transports blood, pathology and microbiology specimens, patient notes, X-rays, breast milk and other medical supplies, plus delivery every night to two local air ambulance bases, using specialist motorbikes.

Some 240 framed and canvas paintings were on show, plus many more mounted only. For my part, I entered 5 pieces, 4 of which were for sale, one NFS, plus 2 reserve works. The reserve paintings are replacements kept back to replace those sold. In most exhibitions, anyone buying a painting can only take away their chosen piece at the closure of the show, which can be as long as a week or month in some cases. This can prove difficult for some people, so it was decided two years ago at our show people can take away their purchase/s immediately, thus we keep reserves rather than have empty space on the exhibition boards.

Decision finally made of what to exhibit

During my tour of duty I helped the ladies on the refreshment table serving tea, coffee, cold drinks and cakes etc, all home-made by members, but most of my time was spent manning the raffle ticket table. Prizes were 3 paintings donated by different professional artists who had during the past year given demonstrations to our group. Amusingly, our Chairman and Treasurer won 2 of the paintings, to light-hearted calls of “Fix” and “Fiddle” by the audience.

Delicious home-made cakes on the refreshment table

As normal, the show was busy but like last year, sales were slow and down. That said, on Friday’s Preview Evening, one of our newer members sold 4 of her paintings. A good job we had reserves to hang. To my delight, 2 of my paintings were sold during the course of the weekend, making me one happy painting bunny.

Priory Bluebells – Sold

English Summer’s Day – Sold

The event was tiring, mainly because of the heat, but most enjoyable. I arrived home exhausted and after treating myself to a large gin and tonic, took to my bed early. As a consequence, I missed the fantastic Northern Lights show taking place, something we never see this far south in England, and something I have always wanted to witness first-hand. Curses. Curses.

A few of our 60 artists from Frome Valley Art Group

Meanwhile, it’s back to the easel to paint for next year’s show. I have plenty of ideas. Whether any come to fruition is another matter.

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Another Year, Another Show

I cannot believe we are midway through May, if only the weather would improve too. Here in the UK it has been a very windy and breezy Spring, today being the first true warm day when we could go outside without coats and gloves, the heating indoors switched off, hopefully now until Autumn, and the sun shining enough to encourage Dave and me out for a drive, taking in four garden centres – a record for us. We only came home when we did because we couldn’t fit any more plants into the car, and ours is no small vehicle, that’s for sure. The next few days will find us busy in the garden.

4 Garden Centres = busy planting week!

It was good to be out, relaxing together as the last few months have seen me working in my office-studio-workroom most days, either writing/editing or painting. It has been the time of year when my art takes over as exhibition season loomed again. This year, I decided to exhibit at two shows, one run by my art club, the other an open exhibition in a nearby town. A total of twelve paintings needed to be chosen, framed and made ready for hanging. Choosing which ones is always difficult, as is deciding the sale price, especially this year considering the current financial crisis. Would people want to buy? How much would they want to spend?

All artworks were delivered on time, and I could breathe a sigh of relief. But there was still more to do. As I am on the club committee responsible for public relations and the group website, I needed to put out plenty of advertisements in art magazines and local press, put posts up on social media, and various websites to entice the public to come. The show is always in aid of our chosen charity, and with two paintings donated by professional artists for our raffle, the more that heard about us, the better.

Preview Night at Frome Valley Art Exhibition

The first exhibition was over this weekend just gone, the preview night having taken place Friday evening; a busy 3 days for all of us volunteers who help put the show together. The preview was well attended, a jolly social event in which several sales were made (not mine, I hasten to add). Saturday was exceptionally busy despite there being numerous other public events on in the region. My day was spent manning the entry and sales desk. It was lovely to see a fellow writing friend arrive whom I had not seen for what must be 5 years or more. As we have a refreshments area in situ, I took time out to enjoy a catch-up with her over coffee and cake. My day was further heightened when one of my paintings sold, one that I nearly did not put in. Isn’t that always the way?

“A Host of Golden Daffodils” – SOLD!

Sunday was unusually quiet so we decided to close the show early, which was a pity because the quality and skill of all the framed artwork there, a total of 232 pictures with 41 being sold, was excellent. In the 5 years I have been a member the standard from everyone has gone up and up. Many of our visitors commented on the talent exhibited, but it became clear people were buying the less expensive, smaller paintings, few of the larger framed, such as most of mine, were sold. This came as no surprise. Most are cautious about how they spend their money at the moment, many worrying about meeting food and heating bills, and buying art can seem a frivolity when other things are more important.

But I do not paint to sell, I paint because I enjoy it; having someone like my work enough to purchase it is a bonus, so I am not disappointed that this year I only made one sale. Many in the group sold nothing, but that does not matter to any of us. We enjoy what we do, we have a great club with lovely people, some who come for the social aspect, others who wish to learn to be better artists, and those who simply want to bring joy and colour into the world. I like to think I am one of the latter.

Moving on to the second exhibition… The preview night was yesterday, in a town about a half-hour’s drive from my home. The venue itself is a small museum, or “heritage centre”, as they call themselves, with little room to show many paintings. Four of us from my group put in several exhibits, about half of the 30 in total on show. This preview night was exclusively for exhibitors (few of whom came), the town mayor and relevant local councillors and venue staff, about 12 of us there in total! Running for 3 weeks, the centre hopes and expects many visitors to the exhibition as in other years, so it will be interesting to see the outcome.

Slideshow of a few of my other paintings at the two exhibitions:

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  Ullswater

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  Field Flowers

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  Bluebell Cascade

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  Nutty the Squirrel

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  Yport

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  Coreposis

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  Favourite Reading Place

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An Exhibitionist

It has been a busy month for me to date, leading up to my art group’s 25th Annual Art Exhibition. I was delighted when the committee asked if they could use one of my paintings (“Sunflowers”) on the advertisement poster, placed in local newsletters, on many sites and pages on the internet, and in local shops and libraries.

For me this year, the hardest part was in deciding which paintings to put on show. I hadn’t painted much these past 18 months and several I had done, I had scrapped – they were not good enough for me, which did not leave me a lot of choice. There were seven I considered, finally whittling it down to five. Two were on stretched canvas so didn’t need to be framed, the remaining three did. My usual supplier did not have a lot in stock but eventually I found three which were perfect.

The exhibition had to be cancelled last year and with Covid restrictions still in place it was a tough call as to whether this one would. One thing was definite: we would not be able to put on refreshments for our visitors, a great shame as this draws people in, makes them stay longer in the relaxed atmosphere, creates conversations and makes friendships. We worried we would not get many visitors. It also meant money raised from teas/coffee/cakes etc would not be made. We charge a minimal entrance fee, run a raffle of professional artists’ work who have demonstrated or taught at our group, exhibitors are charged a small fee for each artwork shown; and take a small percentage of sales. Once fees for the room hire for the weekend are removed, what remains goes to our chosen local charity, this year our hospital’s Long Covid-19 Research Project, a subject close to my heart as one of my nieces, a nurse, caught the virus last year whilst nursing and is still suffering long-term effects.

We were amazed by the number of people who came through the doors over the weekend: 164, mainly on Saturday. Sunday rained and of course the Euro Cup football final was on so this kept visitors away. Also pleasing was the number of paintings were sold, almost £1,000’s worth. Unfortunately, unlike other years, none of mine sold this time although everyone expected the sunflowers and the jaguar to sell, but I am far from not downhearted. It was lovely seeing fellow members’ work selling, especially some who despite having been painting for many years had never sold anything before. Along with the raffle raising nearly £300 it meant once deductions were made the charity will receive a cheque from the club for about £800. We call that a success!

Here’s a few snaps taken by me of my paintings and a bit more of the exhibition.

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  “Jasper”

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  “Sunflowers”

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  “Weight of the World” and “Bluebells in the Copse”

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  “Lilac”

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  Interested visitors

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  Mounts table

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  A few of the displays

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  Poster

Kit Domino’s website and blogs

Opening the Back Door

First, apologies for being a day late. What I had intended to write about has been delayed, so at the risk of boring you I will once again open the back door and reveal the back garden. We’ve been working hard and so thankful for the brilliant weather experienced here in the UK lately which has meant we’ve been able to get practically everything done we intended to do. Everything is growing well, and we can at last enjoy sitting on our new patio admiring our efforts as it all slowly grows and flourishes. In the space of a four to five weeks the long border has gone:

From this

To this

From this

to this

And a bird’s eye or rather bedroom view:

There is still the other borders to transform but they are going to have to wait. Two plants are been particularly stunning at the moment: my ever-faithful perennial aquileiga and a new clematis bought for £1.69 from our local Aldi supermarket.

In preparing the groundwork last November, Dave smashed two of the blue bowls on the new water fountain but, bless him, he bought me another and rather than waste the old, transformed it into a new pot feature.

A clever bit of up-cycling

New fountain in situ

Yesterday, I counted the pots around the rear garden, patio and front garden – there’s 85 of them! And that doesn’t include the old kitchen sink next to the water fountain. Plus he’s planted up and hung 20 wall baskets. So you can understand why we’re so impatient for it all to grow. We’ll have to wait. Let’s hope this marvellous weather continues.

As to what else has been happening… for those who haven’t seen or heard – two weeks ago some of my paintings were in a public exhibition held by my art group. The full story can be read over on my art blog, but I was delighted that one of my works sold. On top of which, I was asked to do a commission, and I won a prize in the exhibition raffle. All in all, a brilliant weekend.

 

On the downside, now the garden is done, we have no excuse not to start on the major living and dining room makeover and that’s going to be a very messy, dusty job. Not looking forward to it and I may have to escape for a few weeks whilst it’s going on.

Have a great June, everyone.

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