Heythrop Hunt

This is a painting of Heythrop Hunt who were at the 3 Counties Show. I wanted to make the painting more about the hounds and horse but brought in a bit of the coat to show their hunting colours. I'm trying to do a few more paintings that have action in them and that are not entirely about the horse, especially portraiture, so hopefully this will be the first of many.

Aaaaand relax!

It's been a busy few weeks, juggling trying to buy a house and painting and then over the weekend was a 4 day event, the Mitsubishi Horse Trials at Hartpury College and all I can say is what a disappointment! This year has been up and down at the best of times and everyone is feeling the pinch moneywise but I sold one print and 4 cards during the 4 days! All I can hope and pray is that I get a commission from this weekend or I am seriously out of pocket but being the type of business this is, I need to plough on and plan for more shows, spending out more cash than I might bring in purely to get my name out there and my paintings seen. The weather wasn't much help either, wind and rain most of the time, even forcing us to open my tent on a different side on the last day as the wind had been blowing straight into it and making it very unsafe. Lots of the stands packed up early but we thought we'd stick it out incase anyone wanted to spend their left over money but as soon as the prize giving had finished, the heavens opened and people ran for their cars. Oh, the joys of an English summer!

Yesterday I dropped off my paintings at Obsidian Art Gallery, Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire for the Horse In Art exhibition which starts on Thursday 14 August and runs until Saturday 13 September. I don't have high hopes for this exhibition, but I never do for any exhibitions as it then makes it a nice surprise if I sell something! Again, it's great publicity and Trisha even very kindly used one of my images again this year for the promotional poster. It's always extremely exciting seeing one of my paintings in print elsewhere!

It's now time to get on with my commissions and fit in some of my own paintings, I've so many ideas for paintings and so little time! I really do need to learn how to organise my time better!!

By the way, I have no idea why sometimes this blog allows me to have spaces between paragraphs and sometimes, like today, doesn't!

Festival of Dressage

Over the weekend I had a tradestand at the Festival of Dressage. It was quite a quiet affair, mainly attended by the competitors and a few members of the public so tradewise it was pretty slow. As with all shows though, time will tell how many commissions I make but sales of prints and cards were definitely down. Luckily I had a good view of the outside arena and was able to watch some top class dressage all weekend. Very impressive but with my riding skills, I should definitely stick to hacking out! The weather was VERY windy with a few showers so there were a few hairy moments sat inside my tent. It managed to stay put all weekend... until we emptied it on the Sunday afternoon and, because we live quite near, we drove my prints etc home and left the tent to take down later. We arrived back to find the tent in a crumpled heap on the floor after it had apparently taken off across the field!! Very embarrassing and sadly there's a couple of holes in my new tent but here's a photo of it at the beginning of the weekend when it was in one piece.

Latest Commissions

Here are my latest commissions. From top to bottom - Percy, Pearl & Tom, montage of Coco and Dillon.

3 Counties Show

So, I survived my first ever tradestand experience! Here I am in the stand on day one:

It was an enjoyable 3 days. Friday morning I was a bag of nerves, not knowing what to expect. Luckily a member from the pet portraits forum that I belong to turned up to say hi and we wandered off to see the horses and that calmed me down a lot. Hi Dawn!

Sitting and working on a painting with people watching was a very strange experience. I never quite got used to it over the weekend but I'm sure that, in time, it will feel a bit more natural. I certainly hope so! I even had a couple of art groups asking if I'd like to come and do demonstrations for them but I had to turn them down as I'm really not at that point yet! I had a lot of wonderful comments about my paintings which has helped my confidence and I'm now wishing I'd started doing tradestands a long time ago as I might not have taken so long in believing in myself!! A lot of flyers were given out so fingers crossed I get some commissions from this weekend but it was definitely worth the experience and we're now thinking of doing other agricultural shows next year too. Being my first tradestand, we've learnt a lot over the weekend that we will use for future tradestands and we've also been surprised by a lot of things, such as the fact that people are more willing to spend extra to buy a print framed so they don't have to worry about getting it framed when they get home. Chris also took a poll as to which was the people's choice painting and Meandering came out on top.

Sadly though, I can't now relax and recuperate as I have 2 paintings I need to get finished by the end of the week but we might take off a week in September, when we finally have some spare time, and relax then!

Tradestands, the saga begins

Tomorrow will be my first ever tradestand and I've decided, not sure whether foolishly yet, to go all out and have it at the 3 Counties Agricultural Show which covers Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire! I spent all day yesterday getting the last bits and pieces done, mounting and framing prints for display etc and today we took my stuff over to the show ground to set up my stall. All I can say is that it's been one of the most stressful and tiring things I've ever done and I haven't even spent a day there with customers yet! Seeing my little stand next to those with lots of money lavished on them made me feel a bit inadequate at first but I reminded myself that I'm self-employed and can't afford the best of display equipment, and I'm sure people won't really notice. As it is, this foray into tradestands has cost me an astounding amount so far, not only did I have to pay for pitches, but also get all the equipment together and get my prints and cards made up. I'd better sell some things and get some commissions or I'll be majorly out of pocket and in the bad books with hubby! It still makes me chuckle when people assume that us artists make lots of money, if only they knew the truth!! Now I just have to get the painting I'm going to work on started, tweak another painting I finished recently and then I think I'm all set. Wish me luck!

Cambridgeshire Art Fair

Over the weekend I had 4 paintings at the Cambridgeshire Art Fair on a stand run by Nicole Langstaff Fine Art. It was held in a large hall at Chilford Hall Vineyard and attended by lots of incredible artists of many different styles. I sold one painting which was wonderful and paid for the weekend (that was hubby's main concern!) but whilst over in Cambridgeshire we also took in a short tour at the National Stud and it's reminded me how much I want to expand my art to take in racehorses but to try and change people's opinions of racing art and make it slightly more contemporary. Knowing that a lot of the racing industry like their traditional paintings, this could prove to be tricky to break through but I'm always up for a challenge!