Latest Commissions

Here are my latest two commissions, Paris at the top and Bea below. Paris was a fun commission to do due to the different style, the inspiration taken from a previous painting of mine. The owner had a fabulous photo of the beautiful Paris cantering across her field and wanted to recreate this with a more contemporary background.

Bea's owner had previously commissioned me to do a painting of a friend's horse so after helping me at that photo shoot, she was able to get some fabulous photos. Old age sadly took over and Bea is no longer with us but this painting will hopefully be a wonderful tribute for years to come.

Equestrienne

Well, after a bit of a break from my art it was back with a bang last week as it was the Equestrienne exhibition that was held by myself and 5 other equestrian artists in Cheltenham. The Private View on the Wednesday night was quieter than we had anticipated as we invited a lot of people but on talking to people from Cheltenham, the locals tend to stay indoors during the Gold Cup racing festival and the racegoers tend to head straight to the pub after the races. Still, it wasn't a bad attendance, with Desi Dillingham, the president of the British Horse Society opening it for us. Because we rented the gallery space for the week, we had to be in attendance and it was great meeting the customers and hearing everyone's thoughts. Not many originals were sold but I did sell a few prints and cards which is always a bonus. We're hoping to hold other exhibitions together and our next venture might be at the racecourse for The Open in November so I need to work on producing more racing paintings this year to target the right audience. All our art was very different from eachother but worked extremely well together and we received many complimentary comments throughout the week. I look forward to our next exhibition together and hope to see you there!

Sad news

Very sadly my dad died on Saturday night. He'd been ill for several years with dementia and at Christmas had had problems with some new medication so we thought the year would be a tough one for him. Just over a month ago he ended up in hospital with what was first thought to be a urinary infection but later turned out to be cancer. By this time he hadn't eaten much for a few weeks, was very weak and because of the dementia, unaware as to what was going on so he didn't suffer too much during his last weeks. My mum and I were with him when he died and see it as a release for him as he'd been so ill without much quality of life. We prefer to celebrate his life and remember him as he was before the illness so look positively at what has happened. Rest in peace Dad.

Denman & Kauto Star

I finished the painting of Denman and Kauto Star this morning and am very pleased with the result. I had used the black background to start with as both photos I was working from had them looking out from their stables so their necks blended into shadows but I absolutely love the dark background as it's made them stand out so well.

I've also received an art blog award from two wonderful artists whom I admire greatly, Laura Hardie and Lene Daugaard so am very excited to receive the award.

I have been asked to list 7 things I love and then pass on to 7 art blogs I admire. The 7 things I love are...

1 My hubby Chris, he's extremely supportive and has been great over the past few months

2 My cats Simon and Izzy. I would go slightly mad being in the house all day on my own if it wasn't for their strange behaviour that keeps me amused

3 The hot summer sun on my skin, it wakes me up and makes me feel alive

4 Home & Away and Neighbours, some call them a guilty pleasure, I openly rave about loving Australian soaps!

5 Travelling, I have a long list of places I want to visit

6 Wine

7 My friends, and yes they know I love wine before them!

The 7 blogs I will send the award to are:

Peggi Habets

Alecia Underhill

Jason Morgan

Jenn Pratt

Tracy Hall

Gayle Mason

Cat McMillan

Denman & Kauto Star

Nearly at the finishing post. Sorry, that was a terrible racing related pun!

Denman & Kauto Star

Please excuse the light reflection to the left again!!

Time Management

It took me a while but last night I finally picked up my favourite book called I'd Rather be in the Studio by Alyson B Stanfield which is full of brilliant advice for artists. I started reading it last year but life took over and this book was replaced for a while by self help books galore! I'm now in a much better frame of mind to take on board and implement her advice plus I now have a larger work space in which to organise myself, my administration and my art. First things first is to organise my time and I have decided to produce a weekly planner and actually write down when I will do certain things instead of my usual get up in the morning, catch up on emails and paper work and then muddle through the day. I gave myself this morning to go for a long walk whilst the sun was out and there was still snow on the ground. It's a common mistake of artists to not give themselves any 'me' time and spend all day every day painting and dealing with the business and this can end up making them resent what they used to love doing plus not getting out of the house regularly is very unhealthy for both body and mind. I'll be the first to admit that if the weather is grey and miserable, such as yesterday, that implementing these ideas and getting moving is the last thing I want to do, the first thing I want to do being sit on the sofa and eat my weight in chocolate, but I will try to keep to my routines and hopefully this will make my motivation easier to come by on the cold wet grey days.

I also realise that this year I need to focus on marketing and selling myself as an artist and the first thing I will be starting on is creating a good Artist's Statement. If I can write down how I view my work, how it's created and how I want others to view my work, it will make it easier for me to speak about it. This is all in preparation for the big Equestrienne Exhibition I'm going to be part of in March as normally exhibitions are held by galleries and the artist's have very little to do with them but this exhibition will be run by us 6 artists and I need to learn how to be more confident with the people viewing my art. Fingers crossed!!