Arty Tip - Acrylic and Texture

Quick Arty tip of the day: Acrylic paints go nicely over tissue paper. Apply a thin layer of watered down PVA to the surface you are gluing onto (ideally board or mount card), lay the tissue on top and quickly slap on more watered down PVA, smoothing out air bubbles (but not creases!) as you go. Once dried, paint acrylic over the top. Lovely textures - try pastel over the top afterwards (when dry), this will really lift out the texture! If the board warps as the tissue shrinks, turn it over and glue more tissue or newspaper to the back.

Hailsham High Street show

Good old Hailsham Town Council are finally doing something to improve the look of the High Street - they organised a clean-up day where volunteers went in and cleaned inside and out of many of the shops that have been sitting empty for too long. Sadly someone thought it was a good idea to then plaster masses of posters for a monster truck show at Arlington Stadium all over the windows so they'll need cleaning again!  But, I digress - the idea is now for artists to show their work in the windows until the shops are let. The council have agreed this with the owners and agents and are collaborating with individual artist and local groups as well as Gallery North. Details of all of the works of art will be in a catalogue in Gallery North, who will aslo handle any sales commission free. This should prove to be a great community initiative - the shop fronts will look used and cared for (artists will keep the windows cleaned) and the appearance of the High Street will be greatly improved, viewers will be attracted into the town - especially as this starts just before the Hailsham Arts Festival week  - which in turn should attract potential businesses into the area and into the empty shops.

I will be showing some of my paintings of animals in the unlikely location of Sovereign Meats, the empty butchers shop in Vicarage Fields. I like the irony :)[This was changed to the Wear Else shop as the keys for the butchers went missing]

Work goes into various shops on 3rd September - my exhibition runs until 3rd January unless the shop is let before then.

Open Studio - August Weekends

Well this all went swimmingly. I had 45 visitors over the 3 weekends, not bad as I was only open for 3 hours each day, and I sold 3 framed pictures and 3 unframed browser pics - not vastly priced, but good to see people liking something enough to want to buy it and take it home! I only put up a few road signs, A3 size - one at Wilmington crossroads, one at the Berwick / Common lane crossroads, one at Milton Hyde, one at the end of Bayleys Lane and one at the end of my lane. Most visitors came because they got the email or my texts or saw the signs. Only a few had picked up the leaflets or seen the ad in the AAF brochure - he rest were all word of mouth visitors or those who were there for my art classes in the week.

 

Come and see all of my work from 1-4pm every weekend in August.

Pickhams, Hayreed Lane, Wilmington (follow the signs).

Parking, tea / coffee available, collection for Chestnut Tree House