I am still in the land of the living, though having painters' block for so long, it hasn't felt like it. Today I made myself come down at 8.30am to the studio and paint all day! I have tried this on numerous occasions and all I have ended up with was a couple of wiped boards, come evening.
I was trying to paint more tulips and now I believe I am done with them till next year.
I bought 3 osteospernum plants yesterday, they are such an unusual colour, not red, not pink, not orange but a mixture of the three. These little dotty cups and saucers were bought from our first summer car boot sales in the town's harbour square. I love that shade of green.
Last Friday I drove 4 friends out round the Wigtownshire (Yellow)route during the annual Spring Fling Open Studios. We had a wonderful day, so sunny and I was happy showing them all my childhood haunts. The studios were fantastic and the artists gave so much of themselves, their techniques and painting processes, with their materials and sketchbooks all on show. The work was beautiful too. I went on the local route on Sunday with B. Susan and Jan were inundated with visitors and sales were good too! Their work was well worth seeing, fabulous.
This photo shows the girls heading into the Stable block at Castle Kennedy - the whole grounds of the castle just takes your breath away. Michael Clark's work in the stable block was stunning. At Port Patrick, our last studio of the day, Suzan Malcolm's still life paintings were just the cherry on the cake - she is a lovely person too.
Spring Fling Open Studios seemed to have lost it's way over the last few years but I am so glad I gave it another "go", they excelled themselves! Well done to everyone taking part.
These are Rowan's red shoes - she is my daughter in law's little (not - she is so tall) sister. She is at drama school in Glasgow hoping to become a famous actress some day. Also in December she was Santa's tallest elf!
She was asked in her interview, what would she say to a child who thinks she is too big to be an elf of Santa's - her instant reply was " Santa needs really tall elves to reach the toys on the top shelves!!
Calling artists out there, in the UK, in the world - let's get together to mentor, encourage and critique each other's work? Are you in a "dry" period? As a group we can help each other through it by discussing our own dry periods, etc.....
I only need one person to join me to become a group! We can use Facebook, emails, skype - I have used it once, I am no expert but I WILL become one, have faith!!!
On Friday my Life Drawing Group hosted a Soup and Sweet Lunch in our local bowling club hall. Believe me, it has taken weeks of organising and at times I wished I had just asked the artists for donations. On the day these same lovely artists arrived at the hall with their huge pots of soup and armed with dangerously delicious desserts! Tombola prizes had been dropped off at my house previously.
To say I was nervous, is an understatement! I wasn't sleeping, my worst nightmares ran from "what if no one turns up" to " what if we run out of food!"
The kitchen team and the waiting team worked together beautifully! More than once I heard the phrase "slick operation!"
We are raising money for good portable easels and decent lighting. The group has had it's 2nd birthday and we are all looking to move things forward by allowing everyone the pleasure of using an easel rather than sitting on plastic stacking chairs and leaning on shaky tables. The hall lighting is appalling so we can address that too!
We raised almost three quarters of the money needed on the day so we are feeling very proud of ourselves - as you can see!! Sue is missing from the photo! I am wearing my late mother in law's apron - she wore it when she was helping out at charity coffee mornings etc. It brought us luck!
A big thank you to all who helped on the day and everyone who donated soup, desserts, cash and tombola prizes and to those who came to lunch!
