Stages of a painting
At first I called this painting Wise Words. I knew that wasn’t going to be my title, but having something to start with is helpful. I had a few flowers in the garden but I wasn’t sure where I was going. I was thinking about how when I paint it is like I am looking at an altar. The rhythm of painting is soothing. Could I land on hope, even when the world feels so chaotic?
As I painted yesterday I began to wonder if my way of being while painting is in keeping with confucius?
I wasn’t sure I knew what confucianism was. I read a bit and found that ‘Confucianism rests upon the belief that human beings are fundamentally good, and teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor, especially self cultivation and self-creation. Confucian thought focuses on the cultivation of virtue in a morally organised world.’
That makes sense to me.
I settled on the title, ‘Tea with Confucius’.
This is the 3rd day of painting. Most of the decisions are made but there is quite a bit more to do until I find the sweet spot in harmony..
And then I think I have found the harmony.
The Joy of exhibiting
with Annabel, Jon, Simon and Denise at the Pond Gallery.
Our work is in harmony.
We share wonderful friends.
People come from far and buy work.
And we have fun.
and the Seasons they go round and round
Today was the PV of the Society of Women Artists 163rd Annual exhibition. I was lucky that I had two pieces selected this year. Having had work selected for the past four years, I am getting to know members and people who also regularly get work selected. The hang was beautiful and even at 10:20, when we arrived, it was buzzing. Meeting Ginny Page, who comes all the way from Denmark for the exhibition and is an SWA member, is always fun. Her work is stunning and it was fun to talk painting.
My two are on the bottom.
This year there were four members of Colchester Art Society who had work selected and those of us who were able to attend the PV met. Sylvia Paul, Debbie Ayles and I took a photo in front of the wall where my work is showing. I am in the main room again!
Colchester Art Society members
Some of you may know that this spring has been a particularly busy spring. The Guyver family had a wedding and who knew how wonderfully disruptive that could be. I pretty much put aside my paints from mid-April to mid-June. The poignant address spoken by the president about the mission of the SWA and how determined women have had to be to get their work seen felt relatable, particularly following on from such a long time off and the tug of being a mother and a wife.
Even though anyone who knows me and has witnessed my dogged determination and the schedule I normally keep would say I never slouch, it’s still easy to feel that I should and I could be painting more. I also miss not painting so being out of my studio is difficult.
OPen Studio 2024
Last night eight of my ArtCan East Anglia group did an online talk about how we made last year (the pilot year) such a success. Preparing for the talk helped me to contextualize any feeling of not doing enough. We had fit winning a bursary, three exhibitions and an art fair into our year together and had plenty of lessons learned to share.
I had my final open studio last weekend and am working on my third piece since beginning again.
In the round, when I put all this together, I am feeling very connected to my various art communities, happy with plenty of the work I have made and more determined to make new work. There is a new ArtCan show next week, FIESTA! And I am excited to make work across media for another show in October!
I’m partnering with icanvas
A few weeks ago I was approached by icanvas to see if I wanted to partner with them. They print fine art on canvas and paper and you can choose frames for work and print to different scales. They wanted to print some of my images to sell to people for their walls.
Who knew my intimate egg tempera paintings would look good on a larger scale and could be affordable too.
icanvas selected 23 pieces to make a limited edition collection of my work.
As showcased on the icanvas website
Love potion number 9
The way I feel about my subject matter plays a significant role in the way I paint about it. Because I plant hundreds of bulbs every year, I have plenty of choice when including flowers in my arrangements. Spring is the season of opportunity for me, so it’s not surprising the joy of being on the precipice of England’s most glorious season gives me license to arrange things in a way that makes me smile. A spring palette is fun to paint.
egg tempera on panel, 30 x 24 cm, March 2024
If you can imagine, I painted this painting while nursing a peculiar rash, brought on by a reaction to medication. There was also a dead rodent somewhere within smelling range. Luckily, when I am painting, I don’t notice anything. The story and the colours in this one went in through my eyes and out through my brush via my joyful heart.
distemper study I, A6, March 2024
There was sun! They spread a picnic blanket on a grassy hill. Spring was in the air. He might have been Richard Burton. She could have been Cleopatra. They stirred eggs for their omelette, gathered flowers for the table and the romance was on.
There is a man with a car that used to be a van who comes to the car boot sale. I always bought something from him, for a long time. His prices were good, and he had exactly the kind of ephemera and old magazines which were perfect for my collage box when I made mail art. I got lots of movie star stuff, magazines, and cigar cards. I haven’t looked in that box in years, but a few weeks ago I found Richard Burton on the floor. He must have fallen out of something.
distemper study II, A6, March 2024
Our cowslips are out, and daffodils abound. At this time of year, I can’t help but paint yellow. and each hue and saturation has a different association. Lilac and lemon, the perfect tincture.
My new Paynes Grey
I’ve been painting in egg tempera since 2017. At first, I used it to paint portraits. I created a travelling egg tempera kit and took it with me to Carol’s studio where she had models come one morning a week. I tried to only bring what I needed as we didn’t have too much space and each week I’d hone my kit to make it even lighter and more appropriate.
Flower arranging for Spring Luck, 30 x 34 cm, March 2024
I stood at my plein air easel and worked flat, using the drawer to hold the pigments. Mini muffin tins were how I transported and used my pigments – I cut mountboard and taped it on two sides to prevent spillage. I had glass sheets which I used until they were full or dry and rotated a new one in, as there was no water in Carol’s studio.
Moses, egg tempera on panel, 22 x 26 cm, 2018
I didn’t have that many colours to start with. If I’d been wanting to copy someone else’s method I would have adopted a method: the Zorn palette, say. Instead I bought pigments that I liked. I didn’t want to buy black. I wanted to make my black and after lots of experimenting I found alizarin crimson mixed with phthalo green made my favourite black.
Our models often wore blacks and greys and dark blues so I was always looking at new ways to say these colours to avoid a ‘system’. Graphite was a wonderful pigment. It was dull and matte and also had some lustre. I mixed it with other colours to create neutrals and for the models clothes.
In my most recent two paintings - one is at the top of the page, Flower arranging for Spring Luck, the other in my previous blog I have discovered graphite again. It is my raw umber of the moment, my paynes grey, the pigment that works magic. One glaze on top of the purple background calmed everything down and made all the other colours work.
Year of the Dragon
As Lunar New Year comes to a close I think of a recent painting. My mother loves dragons. She isn’t a dragon but she collects them. In December she came to visit and brought me some objects that she hoped I would include in a painting. She picked up the auspicious pair of goldfish on a trip. Perhaps she was thinking of Matisse or that she and my father were both fish. For colour and as a nod to the new year I made a short stack of divine fruit, persimmons. I plucked a pink gerbera from a bouquet and placed it in another gift she brought, the vase with some more goldfish. The two parakeets were part of a series of wallpaper that I have loved incorporating in my set ups. She had two of those too, but they talked, they were her pets as a child.
Swimming in Divine Fruit, egg tempera on panel, 22 x 22 cm, February 2024
The dove wallpaper is built from layers of graphite and egg yolk. The vase is lamp black. I learned a lot painting this one and how wonderful it is to assemble objects carried across the Atlantic and pair them with things that I find here. The painting has been framed and is going to my mother for a significant birthday.
Hakata dolls in 17th-century Hakata were made as offerings at Buddhist temples. The Chinese word for goldfish means gold and jade, affluence. Goldfish are an auspicious sign. Persimmons bring good luck and longevity and are a nod to Lunar New Year. They are also the divine fruit of autumn. Gerbera’s grace expresses admiration. Two birds sitting together typically symbolize peace, fidelity and love and the green parakeet symbolises good luck. In China the pomegranate symbolises fertility, abundance, posterity, and a blessed future.
What goes in my browser?
one morning, violet silk pyjama jacket, pastel on book pages, (from sketchbook) mounted size 30 x 24 cm, 2023
For the past two weeks I’ve been gathering work for my browser to take to Bath Art Fair by finding unframed work (from sketchbooks and portfolios) and making some new work – you can’t frame everything.
Not everything goes in my browser and nothing stays there for long, either because it sells or I rotate it out. I like my browser to be relevant to the body of work I am showing.
With my follower’s help I’ve chosen these pieces to frame and hang on my narrow wall at the fair.
At a recent show, Art at the Park (Braxted Hall) I sold all three of my pastels on opened books and three out of four of my egg tempera paintings. I will be showing that kind of work in Bath. I have 12 pieces for my browser and about the same number of framed pieces to hang. Of the work for the wall, four will be pastel on opened book pages, the rest egg tempera. I don’t have any egg tempera for my browser this time but have included a few straight pastels.
To choose what was going in the browser and what I should put in the four frames I’d had made, I surveyed my Instagram audience.
Postcript to a Party, pleasure, pastel on book pages, (from sketchbook) mounted size 30 x 24 cm, 2023
It’s been hugely helpful to get input from my followers and they have seemed to enjoy the ‘job’ too.
You can buy tickets for Bath Art Fair by visiting their website.
https://www.bathartfair.co.uk/tickets/
The PV is Fri 23rd Feb 6-8:30. Getting a PV ticket gives you re-entry access to the art fair over the weekend and a complimentary drink. If you’re coming on Saturday or Sunday use the half price code HALFPRICEWEEKEND to buy your tickets in advance.
Here’s some more of the browser work!
Aftermath to a Party, The Pekinese You don’t know, pastel on book pages, (from sketchbook) mounted size 30 x 24 cm, 2023
Instagram likes and choosing
Does Instagram likes portend acceptance to opens?
I’m delighted that I had two pieces accepted for the 201st Royal Society of British Artists’ open exhibition. For details see below.
This year I submitted four pieces, which is two more than usual, because I was considering applying to become a candidate for membership. I have had work accepted for the past six years. As it turned out by waiting to find out if anything had been accepted, I missed the deadline. So next year I can consider applying again. You only get three attempts.
The first piece I chose to submit was She Sings to Flowers.
She Sings to Flowers, egg tempera on panel, 32 x 42, framed floating in limed white frame, December 2023. (153 likes and 8 comments)
The second piece I went back and forth on. It was actually my fourth choice and it’s titled, Live and Let Live.
Live and Let Live, egg tempera on panel, 34 x 42 cm, October 2023. (181 likes and nine comments)
When I am deciding which work to submit for opens, I look at my Instagram page. I compare likes and look at comments and those two things are among my strategies.
I started posting on Instagram, initially, because an artist friend described how knowing which of her pieces were preferred by her followers was a valuable insight for her. Of course, that suggests that we paint what we think others will like, rather than what we are interested in and neither she nor I work that way. Nevertheless, when trying to get work selected in what we all know are infinitely subjective opens, I go to Instagram to inform my choices,To be honest, though, ultimately, I choose what I think is best.
Fruits of her Labour, egg tempera on panel, 31 x 25 cm, October 2023.
Fruits of her Labour was not selected even though it had the most likes and comments. What do you think?
The Colour Gold
Thumbing through wallpaper books is one of my guilty pleasures. It’s usually when I have a deadline that I go into Stowmarket and head up to the upholstery shop to see if there any new wallpaper or fabric books that have been discontinued… they inspire me.
At the end of 2023 one of the books I brought home had lots of gold in it. I love gold.
When I composed this I couldn’t help but think about the Italian homes I’d visited in the late 80s when we lived in Rome. Italian women always wore gold shoes then, and so did I. Admittedly, I have had a taste for gaudy forever.
“Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning egg tempera on panel, 27 x 26 cm, November 2023
At our Heart of Suffolk exhibition, many people seemed to respond to the painting. It didn’t ‘paint itself’ and I wasn’t sure the gold was working as I was painting. I liked it though. It turned out others did too and it was the first painting of mine to sell.
She Sings to Flowers
egg tempera on panel, 20 x 30 cm, December 2023
Between Heart of Suffolk and when our houseguests arrived for the holidays, I painted She Sings to Flowers. That gold wallpaper was still in my head and that painting is one of two that has been selected for the 2024 Royal Society of British Artists exhibition. It turns out it’s OK to be obsessed by gold and to bring home wallpaper books sometimes.
About Paintings Finding Their Owners
I think sometimes falling in love with a painting is a little bit like an earworm. Once there, it’s hard to get them out of one’s head. I remember when I bought my first piece. We were living in Singapore and we received an invite to an opening by a Vietnamese artist named Viet Dung. I was really excited to attend because the work on the invite was wonderful. When we walked through the door I got this sensation that I had to have a particular painting, that having it would enlarge my life, and bring me joy. It wasn’t an impulse buy but it was impulsive and it was absolutely the right decision.
Not everyone is as impulsive as me and buying a painting can be a deliberative process. Will it fit, will it fit in, can I afford it? Recently people have been getting in touch after a week, a few years, a newsletter, a show…presumably because one of my paintings has lodged in their mind. What a wonderful thing to have painted something that someone remembers and decides they need! Shout out to my collectors! I love when my paintings find their owners!
Painting is the Antidote
Sometimes a motif lets me luxuriate in it. I mix the pigment, egg and water and match the colour that I see and lose myself in the painting. Once upon a time I had a pink bedroom, bubble gum pink, like Christo’s ‘SURROUNDED ISLANDS, not dissimilar to the colour of the walls of the exterior of the house we live in now I once read that they painted prison rooms pink to calm the prisoners. Pink is my calming colour and painting this made me happy.
“My heart is like a singing bird.” — Christina Rossetti, egg tempera on panel, 25 x 26cm, May 2023
‘Art Tax’ and waiting
It might be easy to wish your life away waiting for results from open admission exhibitions. I look at everything I enter as ‘art tax’. That takes the personal out of the selection process for me. Sometimes I am lucky, other times I can’t quite get over the finish line. Over time I have realized that instead of waiting I need to relish the in betweenness of the process. I mean that. Take now, I am in limbo on a few things, one of which is that on the 2nd of May I dropped my two shortlisted paintings off for the RA.
Because my health wasn’t perfect and I needed to avoid sick people, the drop off was a bit of a journey. First there was the drive to Lewisham to park outside our daughter’s house. Then we walked to Greenwich where we caught an uber boat, sitting outside. We disembarked at Embankment and high-tailed it over to Piccadilly where I took a side entrance to drop off. Getting to the RA took about 4 ½ hours from locking our door in Suffolk. It was thrilling and I continue to revel in the moments, forgetting most of the time that on the 24th I will log on and find out whether my art tax paid off this time.
Pre- selected - will this be the year I get in?
This is the third time I have been pre-selected by the NEAC. I was drawing scholar in 2017-2018 and have never made it into the show, apart from when I had a wall as a scholar and sold three pieces!
This is what I wrote about The photographer ands his Subject, egg tempera on panel, 23 x 30, February 2023, when I submitted it:
When I must do errands and am not painting, I am always looking for ideas. That means an inevitable browse in a charity shop. I spotted the vase that is the centrepiece in this painting at an Oxfam. It was over my budget of under £5 but my mum was visiting and insisted she would buy it for me (because it was too beautiful to pass up) and said I could do a painting for her 89th birthday as a thank you. As it was intended for her, the subject matter includes my dad from his days at the Boston Stock Exchange in the 60s and a photo he took of me for a wedding announcement in the late 80s. The focus of this observed still life is the colour, shapes & marks, but I find looking at and thinking about something personal elicits a different kind of painting, perhaps painting infused with a little extra love.
Cats and Dogs
On my last trip to the car boot sale, before it closed for the cold weather, in October 2022, I bought four vintage chess pieces from a set that had been damaged. I wanted to buy them all but reigned myself in. I loved each piece’s expression. The cats are part of my ‘ceramic pets’ collection. I selected the persimmons because of their colour and their name. The set-up, including the colour felt a little awkward and I liked that. The painting is free floating in a limed white frame.
Cat People, egg tempera on panel, 20 x 28, January 2023
Although a ‘dog and pony show’ is ‘an elaborate display or presentation, especially as part of a promotional campaign’, the words evoke a three-ring circus for me. How do you create the feel of a three-ring circus with objects you have, including a bunch of dog figurines?
This painting is a response or a companion to Cat People. It is also a nod to one of my most recent Instagram followers, a photographer whose subject matter is remarkably like what interests me.
Dog and Pony Show, egg tempera on panel, 22 x 31, February 2023
The Year of the Rabbit
I guess, officially, tomorrow is the last day of the official celebrations for the Year of the Rabbit, (or cat in Vietnam).
Year of the Rabbit I, egg tempera on panel, 22 x 22 cm, January 2023
Because we lived for five years in Singapore, this festival has a special place in my heart. I guess that’s why I feel the need to paint about it. Weeks before I begin thinking about it and consider objects, colours and plants that might be included. This year I made two paintings.
Year of the Rabbit II, egg tempera on panel, 19 x 18 cm, egg tempera on mount board prepared with sinopia, January 2023.
Do you feel sad when you say goodbye to a painting?
I get asked that question with some frequency and my response is that saying goodbye has never been a thing for me. A painting is about discovery, sometimes a battle and akin to tuning an instrument, It’s a too-ing and fro-ing until I find what feels like harmony. I like the journey. I am devoted but not attached.
Tip toe the Cat, egg tempera on panel, October 2022, 25 x 24cm
I know when I feel a painting really works and counter-intuitively I feel sad when everyone else doesn’t see it that way and if I show it and the right person doesn’t see it and snap it up, I am surprised.
This summer I said goodbye to two paintings I thought were among my best, but seemed to take a long time for the right buyers to find. Sometimes they get snapped up immediately. Tiptoe feels like one of those.
A few days in the life of an Emerging Artist
Saturday, the rest of the family is going to see the Tigers in Leicester. I am on a train heading to London to drop off a painting at the Mall Galleries which has been pre-selected for the New English Art Club’s annual open. I feel good about the painting. I had the NEAC in mind, even toning down my colours, while painting. I was the scholar a few years ago but have not been selected since, even though I sold three pieces at that show and my work is getting stronger.
Bird Table, egg tempera on panel, 2022
The train is pretty full and there are group of three women in leopard print dresses coifing bubbly to celebrate a 50th next to me. Before I get off they ask to see my painting and what follows are surprised heartfelt WOWs. They like it. I tell them it has only been pre-selected when they ask where and when they can see it. I give them a card.
As I hand in, I ask how many have got through to pre-selection and am told about 400. They will probably select 150. I Instagram my family with an image of the sandwich board and ask for bets. I also ask my daughter if she will collect. The train down cost over £30 (with my railcard).
Charlie and the Red Hot Pomegranate
Meanwhile, I have submitted to the Holly Bush Painting Prize. To date I haven’t been lucky with that but I liked Charlie and the Red Hot Pomegranate enough to make it my holiday card and the other painting I chose to submit, Wiseman with Fruit, had a tortuous life and finally became what it needed to be.
Wiseman With Fruit
The turn-around time is quick. On Tuesday I take my painting number and match it with the numbers posted online for the NEAC show. Failure. I am usually not surprised, but this time I am. I am in a slightly enraged funk for a few hours. I finish a new painting (which I love), sit down between dinner prep and eating and check my emails…
Both paintings I submitted for Holly Bush have been longlisted. I should know if anything is shortlisted by Friday. I will be on a plane to Maine then, to help my 88 year old mother in her garden. I won’t contact Jocelyn Hollis, my framer, just yet.
The Thrill of Exhibiting in Central London
Yesterday I went down to London, full of expectation, to see the Royal Society of British Painters annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries, near Trafalgar Square. I am lucky to have been selected four times in the past four years, but don’t be fooled into thinking I take the opportunity for granted. I was just as thrilled yesterday as I was during my first experience, in 2002, Back then I got pieces into both the Pastel Society as well as the National Print Exhibition. I was recently arrived in the UK, we had to get a babysitter and I can still remember where each piece was hung, what I was wearing and how excited I felt.
Autumn Staycation Still Life is behind me in the corner.
You can visit the show from the today, 3 March - 12 March, 2022 10 - 5 pm
A few SOLD egg tempera pieces from 2021
I paint because I’m curious,because I get a thrill from colour, pattern and light. It’s what I do. But it’s also great to sell work. Here are a few of the egg tempera pieces I sold in 2021
Golden Apple Days (Heart of Suffolk exhibition, Thorpe Morieux)
I Used to be Cool Now I Paint Flowers, Figurative Art Now (0nline, Mall Galleries)
Colour after Frost, St Mary’s Church, Higham
October Offering, Royal Society of British Artist, Mall Gallery
We Three Kings, website (Hawaii)