Category: Uncategorized

I have been learning about lavender species the last few days. I decided to paint this extremely difficult flower in a posy with a wild rose. I discovered that each species seems to have its own peculiarities and subtleties which keeps them apart but which also binds them together as a whole. I decided to include the species ‘Hidcote’ because it has a beautiful dark purple-blue flower casing and a delicate flower of lighter shade with tiny-weeny yellow bits at the mouth of the trumpet (and in some cases a couple further down the shaft). ‘Munstead’ variety has a paler blue flower and the casings are green – and I suddenly noticed this morning that Hidcote has square stalks and Munstead round ones! Also the flowers on the stalks of Hidcote are in groups (mostly) of six – three buds each side of the stalk at alternating right angles – but Munstead appears to grow in whorls of different numbers. Hidcote is more compact on the stem, but Munstead lets it all go!

To help the design I felt that the beautiful light pink of wild rose would complement both varieties. Here is the first stage of painting (about three hours’ worth!). Please note these are photographs of the artwork rather than scans, so a little hazy. I hope you all have a nice day. 🙂

I just checked the NEWA gallery and found that only one of my three submissions has been chosen for the exhibition – but I am very happy with that. View here

That means that I shall have two more paintings available for other exhibitions; it would be very nice if the one on show did sell!

 

I have finished my Parrot picture at last (February 2015 to July 2016!!!). I do hope you like it.
Oil on cotton deep box canvas: 16″ by 40″.

I have continued to make good progress with my parrots – there are just not enough sessions in the time available to me to complete it in one go. Please see below for latest update pictures.

For the last fortnight, every time I go upstairs my nostrils are filled with such a pleasant aroma it makes me feel happy as I walk passed: my mother passed away in March 2007 before I had chance to give her a Stephanotis floribunda which I had bought to give her on Mother’s Day. I have kept the plant on my stair window ledge ever since. It has not done much in previous years but this year it has flowered in June on what would have been my mother’s birthday! So lots of lovely memories flood by with the beautiful perfume. See the photo below.

I have had a few cushions made of a few of my paintings which I may decide to sell on the website. See picture below. I should really appreciate any feedback on the cushions, so do please let me have your views: Email Tina

Just received a lovely email regarding The Artist and Leisure Painter Open Art Competition 2016 (in partnership with the Patchings Art Festival). My selected painting is on show in the Barn Gallery until 24 July 2016:

Competition Accreditation Logo

Thank you for taking part in this year’s The Artist and Leisure Painter Open Painting Competition organised in partnership with Patchings. 

Once again please accept our congratulations on being accepted to be part of the exhibition which opened with this year’s festival. A special word of congratulations to those who received awards following the judging. 

The exhibitions in the Barn Gallery and the Pavilion Gallery continue until 24 July. If you haven’t managed a visit, we hope you will be able to call at some point. Patchings is open daily.  If not the full exhibition can be seen on the Patchings website.

You may be aware that an accreditation logo is available to all those who have been selected for exhibition in the galleries. We have pleasure in attaching your copy as a digital image which you can save. Please feel free to use this in any capacity to promote your work.

The exhibition brings a great deal of pleasure to our visitors, thank you again for allowing them to enjoy your work.
With best wishes

Chas

I set myself a task this morning (Sunday 26th June 2016) to design and complete a painting in one day. I have never done this before because I paint so slowly; but I received the challenge so had to rise to the occasion. I decided to paint a male Redstart, one of our beautiful summer visitors, and as it was only to be 5″ x 7″ (postcard size), especially for the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art’s (NEWA) Wild-Wall Tombola event, I thought it was something I could achieve with a bit (or lot) of effort. Needless to say I do have a bit of a headache (but that might just be the heavy weather!), but a small sense of achievement has come with today’s efforts. Whilst delivering my successful entry to the Patchings Art Festival a couple of weeks ago, I espied a small pad of Fabriano Artistico acquarello cotton paper. Having always used Aquarelle Arches, I thought I might try another brand. It was wonderful to work on and has a very nice finish. Not sure that it is as good as Arches, but will continue to use it when a tiny picture is needed, and so work up more of a relationship with it, as I have done with Arches over the last ten years.

Here is the finished artwork, which will accompany my three submissions up to Cheshire next week. Of course, if none of my works is selected for the exhibition, then apparently my little card painting will come back to me also. But I do hope I am successful and the Redstart goes to a good home.

Many thanks to Dave Oates (Wild Oates Photography) for the beautiful resource photograph.

The dormice painting “Border Skirmish” has been to the framers and is now back, labelled, and ready to go to the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art (NEWA). All I am waiting upon now are my new stiffy bags! Apparently they are coming by Parcel Force, but I have not heard when, and I need them by the end of next week. I do hope they come in time.

This is the beautiful rustic handmade frame – all wood, so quite heavy! Alas, it may not be selected for NEWA (more difficult by the year as there are so many talented people out there), in which case it will come back to me and I shall have it available for other exhibitions. I am also sending up my Snow Leopard and Gannets oil paintings which, of course, might also just have a trip to Cheshire and back again! But I always hope for success…

Just saw on Facebook that Art4Africa has been featured on BBC Look East. There is a little film which can be viewed here until 7.30pm tonight (19th June). If you scroll through to about 2 minutes 30 seconds, you will see three of my paintings above the presenter, most vividly, my pink hollyhock picture; left of that is the Red Kites by Watts Wood, and above my Pint of Science painting of 2015: The Guardians of the Mangrove Oyster. Today (19th) is the last day of the exhibition, so do get along and view all the lovely work on display, and hopefully support its worthy cause. Thank you.

I have been working a bit more on the Blue and Gold Macaws, and I think it is coming along nicely. Just stopped for a coffee, so thought I would post the latest progress for you:

I started a large oil painting in January 2015 in the hope of completing it for my four Cambridge Open Studios weekends in July 2015. However, I got sidetracked and have only just this week got back to it. It is oil on a stretched box canvas size 48″ by 16″, and the composition is completely made up from an idea I had in my head at the time. Thank you to Martin Johns who supplied a lovely photograph of Macaws, and I myself visited Banham Zoo and achieved some rather nice photographs of the Macaws there, both resources helped me to make up the final design. Having never been to the tropical jungles, the background is my own vision of how it might look. The birds seem to each have a different, tantalizing personality; they might all look the same at first glance, but look closer and they have very different faces. I do have two other commissions in the pipeline, but decided that this painting could wait no longer – only trouble is I have forgotten how to paint with oils! But I will persevere and the beauty of the medium is that it can be scraped off and painted over again if I muck it up. (For previous history, please search with “” and hopefully all posts will appear!)

The commissioner has just taken the completed artwork away, being absolutely thrilled with both the composition and the likeness. It was a real pleasure to portray these three beautiful animals, which I met personally to take resource photographs and to get to know them (and their pecking order). Kebba*, the chocolate lab is still the boss, even though he is getting on a bit, but Rego (standing) is ever watchful to take over top dog when the opportunity arises. Maddie, relaxing in the foreground is a small and lovely ex-gun dog, and so beautiful. Here they are all guarding their territory in their back garden.

*I have already portrayed Kebba in 2010: see Artist Code 1023

I do hope you like the painting. I shall be producing limited edition prints and cards.