New blog page...

I've set up a Wordpress blog for all new posts from now - do have a look through the old posts while you're here (see the list in the right hand column) then head over to http://artjosietipler.wordpress.com/

Out of Circles - retrospective

This is an early work of mine, Out of Circles,  first exhibited at the Paddock Studios in Lewes many years ago - I really can't remember the date, probably about 2000. It is based on a very precise and tight pencil drawing that I did in my foundation year at Hastings College of Arts & Technology (or Hastings college of Further Education, now Sussex Coast College Hastings) in the early 80s. 

After a course of Life Drawing classes at Eastbourne College of Arts and Technology (or EVOC, now Sussex Downs College, Eastbourne Campus) in the late 90s I started to get interested in breaking the form down into geometric shapes, hence all the circles. Using tracing paper over the original, I drew precise circles and straight lines to make each line of the figure drawing. I then painstakingly cut these out of tissue paper and overlaid them, using PVA glue to make the overall form of the figure, adding gouache details and lines.

Looking back at this I can see how the fracturing of the image links in with my love of the cubist style, although I am sure this was not my intention at the time. I had become absorbed in the interconnectedness of line and shape in the human form and the laying down of solid shapes, the tissue paper, created more intersections.

The figure is tightly wound, possibly sorrowful or in pain with the dark surroundings giving the feeling of isolation, the red hinting at an imminent burst of energy as the tightly wound figure uncoils.

You can see more examples of these works on my website: www.josietipler.co.uk

Broken Mr Jolly Boy - please bid!

BIDDING HAS NOW ENDED

This is a painting I donated to the Stars on Canvas auction in aid of the Willow Foundation. Bids close on Sunday 3rd December 2012. Lots of other canvases on the site from some very big names.

Stars on Canvas

Willow Foundation

Broken Mr Jolly Boy is my portrayal of a poor little footless Jig Doll that sits on top of our wardrobe. He appeared at a couple of Spot the Dog gigs in the past, a previous incarnation of the Cajun Dawgs - my main memory of him in use was at the Seven Stars in Robertsbridge. One day he may get a new foot and dance again!

Torn between the arts

Well, when I say ARTS .... it could possibly be stretching the meaning of the word a little too far to refer to what we do in the Dicker Players as Art, but we're performing so let's call it 'performing arts' for argument's sake. Each year it seems to take a little longer to get into full 'luvvie' mode. We meet in the summer to determine who wants to be involved in the annual Cabaret and to decide on dates - they're the same every year, but one has to go through the motions - and all promise faithfully to come back at the start of September with lots of ideas for sketches and songs. At the end of the September meeting we all promise to come back with ideas for sketches and songs. By the time we have actually amassed sufficient material for a show we then have a break from 'rehearsals' while one or more of the cast take part in other productions - it's all a bit unsavoury, if you ask me, this sharing out of cast members, but it does show that we have such a good cast that other Drama groups can't keep their hands off them!!

Suddenly we find ourselves in the final run-up to Opening Night. Housework has gone to pot, costumes and props litter sofas, beds and floors, and as usual life gets terribly busy. I have 3 portraits on the go, 2 art groups and have just this morning done a painting workshop. I'm also in charge of ticket bookings for the Cabaret show. Jim has one or two gigs with the band every week and we're helping out with organising events including Mum's Christmas Tree Festival for the local church, Jim's band's Christmas Cajun Party in Hove and, looking to the future, both the Arlington and Hailsham Arts Festivals. I also had to co-ordinate a changeover of displays in the Hailsham Empty Shops last week, a project I have been involved in for over a year now, and which takes up a disproportionate amount of time - trying to get at least a dozen artists to be in the same place at the same time to remove/assemble displays is really not easy, the words monkey and cartload spring to mind. Oh, and we're both working at the office, Jim more so than me which is why I get time to write a blog.

There is just so much going on in my head at the moment that there really is no space whatsoever for creativity in a painting capacity. My creative moments are limited to when I'm on stage desperately trying to overact my socks off and raise my singing voice loud enough not to be drowned out  by the big bloke standing next to me. I did get to start a painting at the workshop this morning but it's almost an automatic response now, when it's a subject and style I have painted so often, so not exactly a creative process.


So, if you want to see me being creative over the next couple of weeks, come to Cabaret 2012 at Polegate School. In the meantime, here are some progress shots of my last commission in coloured pencils and a watercolour and pencil picture on the theme of Refelctions.

The lost waterfall

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I painted this in about 2000, my first waterfall painting - a subject I have painted many times since in various styles - using mixed media of acrylic, gouache and tissue paper on hardboard. You can see some of the original hardboard showing through the tissue paper in the sky. I have shown this piece many times, the last time I remember showing it was in a solicitor's office in Lewes during Artwave week about 2 years ago. And since then, I have no idea where it has gone. I am sure I collected it with all of the others, but I do remember it was either snowing or raining when I collected it and I had to run back and forth to the car so it is just possible I left it by the side of the road in Lewes! It's about 30 inches wide so not exactly something that can easily be missed. Maybe I did sell it and have no recollection, maybe it is on loan on a wall somewhere waiting for me to collect it. One day it will come back to me, but in the meantime, if you see it, please let me know. It's one of my favourites because it was a first and a piece that shaped much of what I have done since and I'm feeling desperately guilty that I don't know where it is. One day it will hit me, like the sudden realisation that the empty space in the car is an indication that I forgot to pick up one of the boys from school.

Learning to say NO

I accept commissions to paint portraits of animals from photos. An animal lover myself, I enjoy painting cats, dogs, horses - you name the animal, I've probably painted it at some point.

My strangest commission was to paint a Dodo to join a collection of Dodo memorabilia. Of course there aren't any actual Dodo's around these days to photograph or indeed, any actual photographs or definitive illustrations so I went back to a childhood haunt, Horniman museum, where there is a 'stuffed' Dodo model. It was strange, and ironic, to work 'from life' rather than from a photo but as it stayed still I could take my time and sketch from all different angles. I had free reign to do what I liked so long as it depicted a Dodo so I decided to make it a happy picture of a family rather than an image of a solitary Dodo heading for extinction.

But I have my limits. I have found, from experience, that I cannot produce a really good painting from poor reference photos. It is disappointing for me, not to mention hard work, to struggle to make out features in a poorly lit photo - the hardest one was a silhouette of a black Labrador - I literally had to use guesswork and I know for a fact it could not possibly be a true likeness of the animal, although the owners were very pleased with it. If the pet is still around I can always suggest the owner takes more photos but I prefer to take my own photos so I can meet the animal. Even if I do end up using the owner's photos as reference, somehow it is easier to draw the animal if we have met.

It is difficult for an owner to judge their own photos because they know or knew the animal and that is what they see when they look at the photos - they don't necessarily notice that there is a huge shadow covering the eyes because they know what the eyes look like. I have been sent photos of a dog as a puppy and as an older dog towards the end of its life with the request to put the older dog in the pose of the puppy, or a recently clipped dog with the request to paint it with longer hair.

I have always accepted the challenge and have never said 'no' until now. And it has made me feel very bad, to say I cannot paint a portrait of someone's beloved animal because the photos aren't good enough and, as it is a posthumous portrait, there is no chance of getting any better photos. Perhaps it is vanity, but when I see some of the bad portraits that are out there and look back at some of my earlier attempts - not thrown away, I keep all of my work hidden away, even the things I myself have rejected - I really don't want to give anyone a 'bad' painting, no matter how much I'd appreciate the fee.

In an attempt to avoid this problem, I produced a set of guidelines on my Pets by Josie website on how to photograph pets. http://www.petsbyjosie.co.uk/how_to_order.html

Figures, rocks and kiwis

Three different styles, subjects and mediums here:
The nude is in mixed media and was done as my demo piece for my 10-4 workshop with the Bexhill Art society on Monday. The initial sketch (from a drawing done back in my first year of college!) was broken down into circles, triangles and straight lines onto the board, I then applied coloured tissue and other collage bits with PVA glue into the background, a few circles of tissue onto the figure's round bits (!), then painted in the figure with acrylics, a bit more acrylic on the background to reshape and finally some pastel and pencil work over the top.

The seascape was a very quick demo during my 6.30-8.30 class with the Hailsham Art Group on Tuesday - thick acrylic lilac to yellow blends for the sky and sea onto a primed piece of cartridge paper, I then added in the rocks and the orange glow, added PVA glue to the purple/blue acrylic mix to make a transparent glaze for the clouds. A bit more white into the sky and sea, dry-brushed rock colour onto the surface of the water, and finally a glaze of white over the background rocks.

The unfinished still life was Wednesday's 2-4 demo to the Acorn Painting Club in Worthing. On A1 paper using a variety of makes of soft chalk pastels, I sketched out the basic shapes in the green, working onto a dark gold coloured canford paper on the smooth side, gradually blending with finger or cotton bud. It's the first time I've ever tried drawing kiwis or gold platters so am pleased with the progress and intend to get it finished over the weekend. And before you say anything, its deliberately out of proportion and wonky, it's my still life style!

Well it's been a busy old week! I'm having to miss the Arlington Art Group session tonight because I'm going to the Blue Monkey Network event at the Towner in Eastbourne for a talk by the Binnie Sisters which I am really looking forward to. But I did get my Arlington Village Hall 'fix' last night because I went to the talk by Keith and Stella Myerson about their transatlantic adventures which was fascinating and had some beautiful seascape photos.
I need to give my hand a rest for a few days because my fingers kept locking up during the pastel demo, which was equally worrying and annoying because it was putting my smooth curves out a bit, but hope to be able to finish all incomplete works over the next week or two then get stuck into more works for my Rural Industrial and Band collections.
But right now, I'm off to the office to get engrossed in figures of a different kind - bookkeeping on Sage.

Figuratively speaking

On Monday I will be running a workshop for the Bexhill Art Society (http://bexhillart.wix.com/bexhillartsociety#!) on Figurative works in Mixed Media. This follows a demonstration I gave to Battle and District Art Group earlier in the year. One of the audience was from the Bexhill group and booked me to come along to them in October to run a workshop. This seems to happen quite often - people attend more than one art group and, if they enjoy a demonstration, will recommend me to their other groups which is handy.
On Thursday I will  be demonstrating to the Acorn Art Group - a still life in pastel.

My plans to do sketches of the Cajun Dawgs and dancers hasn't really progressed yet but I am using some photos I took of another band, the Wakin' Snakes, at The Star in Eastbourne, to produce this painting - work in progress. It's lacking that element of movement at the moment and needs a lot more work but I'm pleased with the colours, different to my usual palette.

If this is Thursday, it must be Warsash

Well, what a lovely bunch of people they are in the Warsash Art Group. I gave a demonstration to them last night of how I paint moving fish in acrylics and mixed media and they were all very appreciative and complemetary.

Jim  came with me to do the driving, as it was near on 100 mile drive, for which I was incredibly grateful because motorway driving isn't exactly my thing and we got lost as we left the motorway. I managed to stay relatively calm as I watched my setting up minutes ticking away, until a car suddenly pulled out in front of us and Jim had to brake sharply, sending my paints and paintings flying. Just a couple of minutes later we arrived at the hall and I walked in, feeling terribly flustered,  to be warmly greeted by most of the members of the committee which instantly put me at ease again.

The demo went well, the preparation I did while stewarding at the Gallery on Wednesday helped greatly because watching me fill in each individual shape in the background would have been as interesting as watching paint dry. I was quite pleased with the picture I ended up with but, with quarter of an hour to go, I had got to the stage where I really need to take it off the board and curl up on the sofa with it on my lap in front of an episode of Hollyoaks, which doesn't really work in front of an audience when you're being videoed and have a clip mic on... and where there's no sofa. But questions from the audience and bit more of me talking about myself, filled the gap.

Having had his half a shandy and packet of cheese and onion crisps at the local pub while watching football on the big screen, Jim returned to help me pack up and we wended our way home once more, eating our picnic of sausages, quiche, salad and redbush tea. Rock and roll!
Next October booking is Bexhill then Worthing.

Dose of inspiration

The usual problem with taking part in an Art Trail is that you don't get the chance to visit the other venues - but, as I was sharing with both Anne and Mum we could split the stewarding duties and I actually managed to visit most of the other venues on the trail.

Starting at number 1 on the trail, the Festival exhibition at Gallery North featuring work by Dino Mazzoli - texture and colour grab me so a lot of these are right up my street, particularly the landscapes. There's a John Bratby quality in there, some of the portraits quite harsh. Some beautiful photography upstairs, local landscape shots by David Higgs.

Longleys Studio Barn -  envious of this light studio space!

2-Longleys Studio Barns with a wide selection of work including some stunning animal pictures by Christine Jenkinson who had me quite jealous at her use of light, and some highly atmospheric pieces by Anna Wilson Patterson.

3-Southview Art groups at South View (next to the library) - I do love seeing exhibitions by art groups as you get some unusual subjects and a great variety of techniques. Here, Eileen's groups displayed some fabulous pieces including red.white and blue themed works and some skilfully created drawings in watercolour pencil on dark paper.

4- Geoff Pittman's Garden Pottery Studio - a big surprise as I had no idea this was here, almost directly opposite my office window. Geoff is enthusiastic and told us all about the science of pottery, firing and glazes and I came away feeling a lot more knowledgeable about a complicated subject that I'd thought was a simple process of make it and bake it! Nice pots too - subtle colours.

The fabulous Clive and Val

5- Open House at 100&7 with the gorgeous Clive and Val. I enjoyed a cuppa here and Clive showed me his paper wreaths, a new venture for him and a surprise for me as I had no idea he was creative! Combining precise folding with innovative use of books, maps or sheet music - the mathematical element appeals to me. I admired once again Anne and Val's unique silver jewellery (one day..) and the  needlcraft skills of Monica before heading off to Venue 6:
12 Ingrams Way to see pots, patchwork, plants and more including yet more lovely silver jewellery by Liz Cottingham displayed with  textures of netting, shells and pebbles, echoed in some of her photography. Ian Goldsmith had some work here that I hadn't see before - he has a very gentle touch portraying faces and skin with an almost luminous quality, his Ophelia is a particular favourite.

7- Art at the Library  featured work by the Arlington Art group and I was very proud of the displays which were changed weekly. To pick out just a couple, Helen Gander has done some lovely, detailed pictures on scraperboard, a blast from my past, and Hazel Hooker is producing a lot of fabulous work in vibrant colours including local scenes, some of which she is also selling at Liquorice by the George Inn.

8 - us! 9 and 10 - sadly I didn't make it to our 2 nearest venues but I have seen a lot of Michael Gower's work at our art group lately and he is going from strength to strength, particularly in his pastel work, which has a velvet quality to it - he is using contrasts, shadow and light to really good effect.

11  - it just wasn't possible to make the time to visit although I did get lost on my way to 12 and saw the signs outside so I'll know where to go in future!

Chris at The Chantry - looking pleased with himself 

12 - Art at the Chantry. At last I've made it to this hidden gem of a little venue, a restored chapel just north of Rushlake Green. The artists managed to squeeze a surprising amount of work in - Chris Liddiard's deceptively simple paintings have a clarity and total calm about them. I was very taken by Min Cooper's work, illustrative but bold. There were a couple of small metal garden sculptures which interested me as I'm considering trying to do something similar myself but am hampered by a lack of welding equipment, knowledge or skill, and even sculptural skill which could be problematic...

Well, that was everything on the main trail, then there was plenty of work to see in the High Street shops including Ruth Bodkin's botanical work, Clare Fitzgerald's photography and Zan Stevenson's stunning work - again, colour and contrasts make me stop and look.

So, my major dose of inspiration should lead to a whole new body of work - and the subject was decided at the final event of the festival, the Cajun Zydeco party at Chapter 12. I will sketch and photograph as many gigs as I can and aim, in a year;s time, to have an exhibition of at least 12 pictures  inspired by the music and dancing. There. I've said it, it's got to happen.



While I sat and, in uncharacteristically self conscious mode, sketched the moving musicians (why can't they just stay facing the same way for 2 seconds!!?) a customer asked, jokingly,  several times if I would sketch him. Eventually, I did, all of a 30 second sketch with which he and his companions were delighted! hey, maybe I should take it up for a living.

Maybe not...

Call this working?!

well, possibly not, but I've been a full time artist for a week and am exhausted! But it's not over yet..

It really started last week when I began the hard slog of clearing the space for the Hailsham Arts Festival 'Open Studio' - more than just the studio, it was the whole of the double garage space, hallway and conservatory. The first couple of days seemed to consist of moving piles of general stuff from one place to another but I gradually got into the swing of putting things 'away', which sometimes involved a bin bag, and shunting furniture and space miraculously began to appear. But not for long because, with the help of sons and their unsuspecting friends, a plethora of screens and tables soon filled the area and I could start the process of hanging. 

I had persuaded Mum to let me show some of her work including her embroideries and we displayed some of Dad's pottery.  Anne came on Friday and hung her work, laid out sketchbooks and put out cards and prints to sell but after 2 days of hanging I’d only managed to squeeze in about half of my work and I still needed to add most of that to my catalogue. Saturday morning came and I dashed around like a headless chicken with number labels until, at11am, we were finally ready for our first visitors.

 

I wasn't under any illusions - we live off the beaten track, a long way out of Hailsham, and the Art Trail hadn't had nearly as much exposure as it should have had - so I wasn't surprised at the lack of crowds on the doorstep. But as I write on Friday evening, we have had a very satisfactory 45 visitors over 7 days, have made 2 painting sales, lots of card sales, a photo sale and made a good sized collection for Chestnut Tree House. 

This afternoon I found time to visit another venue on the Art Trail, in the centre of Hailsham, that had considerably less visitors than us despite being open longer hours each day which got me thinking about why. Our signage here definitely helps - we have balloons at the end of the lane, posters with the Hailsham Arts Festival and Art Trail logos and the opening days and times clearly shown and bunting on the gates. If a visitor is uncertain whether they are in the right place or at the right time, they may well turn away and go home. I also have mercilessly bombarded facebook friends and contacts with reminders, have emailed my large mailing list and have 'tweeted' frequently. I also had one of my paintings in an empty shop window in Hailsham High Street (part of the Art in Empty Shops project) with my name clearly shown and a copy of the Art Trail map in the window. 

I also think that offering free painting demonstrations and refreshments has drawn visitors who may otherwise not have bothered. So, they came for something free and the refreshments made money for the charity box, not me, but I got to talk to all of these visitors and they now know me, my name and what I do. Next time I have an art event, they will probably return and bring friends, they will spread the word and tell people about my work. Some of them are going to come to my future classes or art groups, some are interested in booking me to demonstrate to their art group, many have taken my Pet Portrait leaflets - it is all good networking and publicity.

In addition to the Open Studio, in the last 10 days I have given three 2 hour demonstrations to art groups (in Shoreham, Lancing and Pevensey), seven free demonstrations at home and one 3 hour workshop at Gallery North plus I have found time to do two initial sketches for a commission and start two new paintings, attend an evening Art and Business networking event in Eastbourne, hang some pictures at Hailsham Library and go to the weekly Arlington Art Group. All this and I've been able to sit and chat with visitors, chill at quiet times, read my book and walk the dog.

Just 2 more open days left to go then......oh blimey, I've got to put it all away again!!

If my poor long suffering family can cope with my unbearably awful mood in the run up to the event, my unreasonable demands on their time and muscles, and the disruption to the usual motorbike, tools and band equipment storage areas, I'll do this again!! Next time, I think I'll offer workshops most days, will only open the studio from 1pm and will try to get someone to display sculpture in the garden to make the most of the space - unless of course I have done my welding course by then and have my own collection of scrap metal sculptures to display....

 (Thanks to Tim Church for the photos!)

Ready, steady…….

NEARLY ready for the Open Studio tomorrow. We have packed a massive number of pictures into the available space – I’ve now got to label all of mine which should take a couple of hours!! Anne Howard is showing landscape paintings and some photos, I am showing a variety of work including some of my new and unfinished collections (sneaky previews), Mum is showing some of her embroidery and paintings and some of the pots that Dad made. It’s all looking rather lovely really.

Just the balloons, bunting and road signs to go up in the morning, the kitchen to clean ready for the refreshments, the garden to tidy so visitors can sit out there with their tea and cake, and my demonstration to prepare for.

Oil and water

Yesterday I went with the FABULOUS Cajun Dawgs to one of their gigs at William the Conqueror in Rye Harbour. While they played, I sketched a scene of the boats on the water. Not a good piece in itself, I spent far too long on it because I was working  relatively small in chalk pastels and as the tide came in the level of the boats rose so the perspective changed, but decent reference for a future acrylic piece and I had fun.
Today I have just had a play with the oil pastel garden scene and added some alkyd oil to bring the colours back to life. It's getting there.

Wheely bad day

In other news, last weekend we decided to go for a bike ride. Jim has been in heaven since he rediscovered his shed - having a good clear out of the old stable (dumping ground) and all the tools, lead to Jim being able to clear out and organise his shed (life-escape-pod). This includes sorting all of the screws and nails into little pots, I suppose a man's version of filing. So he had time, tools, space and inclination to sort out a bike for me. We have a few bikes dotted round the place from various friends who've left them here, family bikes, hand me downs and rescue bikes (like rescue dogs but you don't actually care for them, you just let them rot in the corner of an old shed).

We set off, the sun was shining, we stopped for a chat at the end of the lane with an american couple looking to cycle to Eastbourne, carried on about 20 yards on a slow incline and there was a loud bang and a puff of chalk dust from my front tyre. The whole thing had exploded, not just the inner tube.

Walking back home we caught sight of a neighbour in his driveway, stopped to say hello, talked about what happened...pause...'what size wheel is that?'. Turned out he was that second off to the dump with various bits including 2 tyres that would fit my bike!

Carrying the 2 tyres we walked on back home and Jim got straight to work, in the shed, fitting the tyres while I mowed the lawn.

Mowing is my latest passion. It has always been a man's job in this household. First Grandad, then Dad, then my brother, then Jim, then our boys one by one. But now the boys are busy doing other things so it's Jim's job again and he's busy doing hedge-cutting and strimming too so I have finally been taught how to use the ride on mower. What fun! It turns on a sixpence, has no gears, just a forward and backwards pedal and it is a very satisfying job.

I was bombing around on it last week in the scorching sun, wearing a big floppy sunhat and the only long-sleeved lightweight shirt I have which just happens to be covered in sequins, when a visitor arrives. A man who came to my open studio 2 years ago and decided to pop in on the offchance that he could show his wife some of my work. I looked every bit the eccentric artist, only lacking the G&T and cheroot.

The ride on mower doesn't fit into our little walled bit of garden so I use the push along one. As Jim was busy in the shed, I dragged the mower out of the stable, across the pea-beach drive and started mowing. Little did I realise that a stone was caught in the back drive wheel and 5 minutes in it shattered the wheel. Sigh.

Later that evening, as we were playing backgammon - a game we haven't played for years and which took about 2 hours to read up the instruction - we heard a bang outside that sounded like the shed door. Jim had forgotten to lock the door. Torch in hand, he rushed out making as much noise as possible so that any burglars would disappear before he got there. Nothing.

The 'stuff to be fixed' pile in the shed

Next morning we set off for another bike ride - only we didn't because it turns out that the bang was my tyre exploding. Sigh.
But, as luck would have it, the burst tyre was perfect for gluing (in a shed) around the broken pieces of the mower wheel and I have just used the mended mower to successfully mow the lawn. Cool.

Of workshops, balloons and pushy fish

Feeling it

Inspired by the enthusiasm and work of Corina Stupu Thomas, I tried to create an abstract to reflect how I was feeling. I had a large canvas that was just crying out to be repainted (it had been used as several different posters in it's life).

Out came the vibrant pink, the glue, the strips of fabric. I splattered paint, left the wet canvas in the rain, put light and depth in to reflect my mood then reality got in the way and I had to leave it for a few days.

 I came back, in a different mood, and all the colours changed - I went primary and lots of black crept in (probably not a good day!) so I went of an a huff and ignored it for a few days more until, in a lighter mood I went in with the white acrylic ink and changed most of the black to white so there was a glow round everything.

But still something wasn't right. It had gradually become an underwater scene, wreckage perhaps, but as I knocked back the primary colours which were all fighting eachother, it looked unfinished. It remained so for a week then I had the urge to do another fish painting - there was the possibility of putting work into the window of the local aquarium shop for an art trail - so went into the studio in search of paper and the next thing I knew I had painted a fish onto my abstract and it came to life as a painting. More fish, a quick wash all over of green and it was complete.


I was so pleased that this had suddenly come together after weeks of struggling that I put the photo on Facebook which lead to it being sold the next day. Cool.

Pushing Pastels


Here I was experimenting with oil pastels. I used them many many years ago (honestly, I think I was about 19) to paint a picture of waterlilies which worked really well, lots of contrast, lovely shiny leaves but since then have only ever used them at kids classes for resist techniques (oil and water not mixing).

 I ran a workshop at the Arlington Arts Group one evening on working large using paint and pastel and one person bought oil pastels, not chalk and was finding them frustrating as they didn't blend like the chalk pastels. I remembered that I used them very thick and 'pushed' the colours together to blend them, scratching off areas and getting terribly grubby.


So, I had another go. the sun was shining and I dragged my easel down the garden to the pond area where there's a rustic pergola over one of the paths which casts great shadows. I'm not so keen on this one yet - it's lost a lot of the vibrant colour of the sunlight on the vine leaves, that beautiful citrus green, as I've overworked it so I may try some light alkyd oil over the top, but the sunlight on the path is just what I wanted. I primed a piece of mountcard with black gesso, accidentally stuck some newspaper to it so carried on and added a load more strips of newspaper to the bottom half to add some texture and primed black over it. That texture was perfect for the path.

TUTORING

 These are some pictures of my Summer class students working in the studio/garage/barn/workshop. Unusual still life in chalk pastel, 'breaking the rules', and textured seascapes using polyfilla / texture paste and acrylics.

Some of the other classes included pencil details of eyes, hands and feet and black and white designs inspired by the Vorticists.

I enjoy these classes immensely and get a lot out of the research and preparation beforehand, plus I get inspired by the way other people work and always have the urge to be creative at the end of the class - sadly there's always something else to do at that point so I must run some morning classes and keep the afternoons clear for my own painting time!

My final class is on Wednesday, painting in the garden, but with the weather forecast I'm not sure that's going to be going ahead. After that, it's demonstrations and workshops to art groups (loads of those lined up) and the new Hailsham Art Group, where I'll be doing quick demos and tutoring twice a week if anybody actually comes along - we shall see, it's worth a try.


FESTIVAL STUFF

The Hailsham Arts Festival is fast approaching and everything had gone terribly quiet once the programme had gone to print so I started pushing it on Facebook, twitter, updated the website with all of the individual events and applied to put up the banners. Screech to a halt here - applying to put a banner up over a road requires £10,000,000 public liability insurance and the fixing points need to have an annual test certificate. With Gallery North's insurance only covering £2000,000 and my £5000,000 cover not actually covering a  banner because it's too high a risk (! what?) it was looking impossible. But Guy to the rescue (I believe he's connected to the Hailsham Bonfire society) , who puts banners up for the Town council and has his own PL insurance, does the fixing points testing and will apply for the licence and put the banner up for us! Result.

So, publicity can be hard to come by but Jenny, Festival Director, managed to get a press release into the local paper which got a lovely large piece with a photo on page 5. to keep the momentum and remind folk it's coming up, I suggested a press launch of the Festival programme. We had this yesterday and had the photographer (Stephen Curtis, lovely chap, knows everyone, is related to me and took our wedding photos) come along at 12 so we should have a picture in next week's paper, and then quite a few people came in the evening to pick up copies of the programme and meet eachother - not as many as I had hoped and only a couple of the committee, but sufficient numbers to make it worth doing. Julian Sutherland Beatson gave us a short talk about how to make the most of the Open Studios, based on his 5 years experience of the Eastbourne Festival,  which was very interesting and I'll write notes on the festival page. Balloons are key to success.

Sam Elsby from Hailsham Theatres was there and several members of the Ropemaker Theatre Company so I chatted about the Dicker Players which has whetted my appetite for our next rehearsal (I use the term advisedly) on Monday night. I do love doing our annual Cabaret - I updated the Dicker Players blog page with photos last night and you can see how much fun we have. Amateur and proud of it!

Not as old as I feel - and finally, I realised yesterday that I'm not as close to 50 as I thought I was. Sometimes being forgetful and bad at maths can have its advantages. Maybe my usual birthday 'blues' won't hit quite so bad this year!