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!

Commission - Angus and Tara

This was a birthday commission for Angus, here with his favourite lab Tara. This was painted on a canvas size 12x10". I chose to blend in the edges of the background to make it a bit more painterly, plus, to be honest, I'm not the best landscape artist so it helped make sure I didn't make too much of a mess of it!

Final preparations are under way for the Three Counties Show next week and I've just received my Fine Art Cards. I have had 8 designs made up and these will be in my shop on my website as soon as hubby adds them, might take a while!

Latest Commission - Carragh

Here is my latest commission Carragh. She's a Thoroughbred x Shire and this was a really enjoyable painting to do, a slightly different pose to usual and certainly a different size painting, this painting is 20x30".

Things are getting really busy for me right now. I've had to select which of my paintings to submit to the Society of Equestrian Artists annual exhibition this year and have just sent off the CD with the images on for the preliminary judging. I will find out during June whether these have been accepted and then we all travel to London to hand in our paintings for a second judging and get the final yes or no as to whether they will be hung. It's such a different format to most exhibitions but there are so many entries and so much variety that they are extremely stringent so it's always extremely exciting when your paintings get accepted.

I'm also nearly ready for my first tradestand in June at the Three Counties Show in Malvern. I've just ordered my fine art cards to be printed and then it's just the final touches needed for my tradestand and I should be set. I imagine there will need to be lots of improvements to my stand over time to make it more appealing to customers and to have more stock but I'm looking forward to learning about the in's and out's of tradestands and fingers crossed I sell some things! Don't forget to come and visit me!!

What a week!

This has been a week of highs and lows. At the weekend we were at a friend's wedding in Ireland, having a great time catching up with friends from around the world. We all met 10 years ago in a hostel called the Ozi Inn in Perth, Australia and it's such a privilege to still be friends with these wonderful people after all this time.

Sadly, however, when we got back from Ireland late on Monday night, we found out that our 18 month old boy cat Dan was seriously ill. He'd been fighting kidney failure for 4 weeks after eating a shrew or vole that contained a bug that attacks cats kidneys. At his age he should have fully recovered but sadly, his body couldn't cope with the toxins in his system and on Tuesday morning we had to make the extremely heartbreaking decision to put him to sleep as he was never going to recover. Luckily we still have his sister Izzy and she's certainly making the most of having all the attention.

Onto business matters, two more limited edition prints have been added to my shop, these are Alert and Meandering.

Have you got June's edition of Horse & Rider magazine yet? My website has been chosen as one of their favourites of the month on page 8! How exciting is that?!

Also this month I am taking part in an exhibition about Animal Art at Parkfields Gallery, 4 High St, Ross on Wye. It is running from 26 April until 2 June and I have 6 paintings on show. If anyone is in the area, please pop along.