After a very eventful and sometimes unpleasant summer, things have started to settle into the seasons turning from the lush greens and yellows to edges crinkling and turning brown. I thought I would try and paint every day to get back into the rhythm of art work and I turned to my garden for inspiration. I knew that this year would be a busy year with my father turning 90 and my nephew getting married, but no one could have foreseen that my daughter would end up in hospital over the summer and a quite worrying month ensued. Now that things are a bit calmer I took to my garden and saw the beautiful artichokes coming to the end of their flowering lives before they set seed. Who would not be inspired by such gorgeous colours and textures?
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I had never taken part in South East Open Studios before, and although in the past I considered showing my work in this way, the timing never seemed quite right. That is until I was offered the opportunity to join Ashford Visual Artists and exhibit as part of a group exhibition with them. The group is made up of talented and individual artists, and we showed in a group of 10 artists in Amaltheus Barn near High Halden. The Barn itself is a lovely building in an idyllic setting made from straw bales, covered with daube. The owner of the barn built it himself in a green and eco friendly way and as he put it made all his mistakes on it, before moving on to build a beautiful house next door. In a pen opposite the entrance to the barn were two spotted pigs and in an adjacent paddock a variety of sheep. As we sat and ate our lunch on the days we were open to the public we were greeted with a cacophony of grunts and squeals as the pigs became more and more agitated squealing to their owner to hurry up and feed them. It was funny watching them eat their slop as I imagine they found us just as amusing watching us eat ours. Here is what I have learnt from my first experience of exhibiting in SEOS: Guide Picture. It is really important to produce a picture for the SEOS guide that reflects your work. This may appear an obvious point, but unfortunately I did not realise this and relied on older work to make my application and produced other work for the exhibition after the application process. The picture in the guide shows potential art buyers an artist's style. Artists in the exhibition sold pieces that were their thumb nail picture in the guide. Which just goes to show that advertising does work! Have confidence in your work. In the past I have lacked the confidence to talk about my work and was shy when it came to engaging people when talking about my work. I was fortunate to sell two pieces of work before the private view at the exhibition, and this gave me enormous confidence. As the weeks of the exhibition passed more and more people engaged me in conversation about my work and I was able to explain processes and techniques that I had used and gained confidence. For this, possibly the mantra that I use in making art that helps is.......Practice, practice, pactice. Choosing your location. When I visit open studios I look at the guide maps and try to fit in as many studios close together with artists that I like to visit and I think that is what many visitors do as well. This was true of the Barn where I exhibited. Many visitors chose our exhibition on route to other studios. Other artists I have spoken to opened up their gardens to walk through and converted their sheds into gallery spaces and some even sold plants as a profitable sideline. Location of your open studio is not necessarily key to visitors decision to visit open studios as long as there is parking, and easy access, visitors come to enjoy the experience of looking and hopefully purchasing art. I have to say that the experience of my first SEOS was a good one. I talked about my work and hopefully increased visitor's desire to engage with art, and I know that this experience has energised my desire to engage much more with people who have a thirst for creativity through the arts. But summing it all up and asking myself would I do it again? Well, yes I would, and I would recommend this activity to other artists to have this experience of engaging directly with people who are interested in art. Just a few call outs to new friends and old for coming to visit - Lin Fetcher from the Fish Slab in Whitstable came to visit and Brigitta Wilson, who also took part in SEOS in Ham Street showing her wonderful colograph prints, also came to see us. Thanks to all who came to visit. Well, the South East Open Studio exhibition is fast approaching. It begins on 3rd of June and finishes on the 19th. Check for opening dates, times and address at my SEOS page . I am fully in the swing of art production and the card above is a sample of the work that I have produced and will be available. Most of my cards are based on an ancient wood near to me, Thornden Woods. I travel through it often and is a great inspiration to me. As the seasons change so have my mono prints and spring time has influenced me to produce a wealth of vibrantly coloured cards. More of my cards can be seen on my Instagram page. I will be showing my work with the Ashford Visual Artists. A group of contemporary and original artists in the Straw Barn Amaltheus, High Halden. They include Olga van Dijke, Vikky Furse, Harriet Gifford, Jennifer Hedley, Liz Garnet, Cally Carter, Glynis Thomson, Jane Cornford and David Hover. I am really looking forward to sharing in this experience and hope to meet many artist and art lovers visiting the show. Towards the end of last year I decided to find a painting class I could join to practise painting life figures, a discipline I had not done since college. I wanted to be among other artists who also wanted to experience the struggle and intensity of studying the human form. I found a small group of about 8 people mostly fellow female artists that meet on a Friday afternoon for a couple of hours. Most of the group attend the drawing class in the morning as well as attending the painting class in the afternoon. The reason why I am doing this is because I want to get better at painting. I have for a while concentrated on printmaking as my main creative work, and I like the painting practise the class gives me. I have posted two paintings above. the first painting was a sitting for a two week pose. This week was supposed to be the second week of a two week pose. Turning up to the class with only a painting in my hand and paints to start the class I set up as I usually do, to give myself a bit of a breather before everyone else arrives. I like the quiet of the room before the shuffle and mumbling that happen with every session as everyone becomes organised .......moving easels, stools etc. As people drifted in we found that the chaise lounge that had been used the week before was in another room where an exam was taking place and a new pose was proposed, with the first pose being returned to next week. Another student very kindly lent me some beautiful watercolour paper and then the model struck a pose. Looking back on my work I can see an enormous change. Not so much in the style, but in allowing myself to take chances. Fear of the white space before you can be debilitating. The room where I paint is full of light and looks towards Canterbury where the Cathedral is prominent on the horizon. As the months have changed while I have been attending this class, so have the surrounding trees from skeleton branches to being dressed in beautiful lush green foliage. The models sits or stands where the light is best, to the centre of the room opposite the windows. I don't know why I chose tones of green, maybe the ensuing change of season from barren winter to the green of spring was an influence and having committed to using green in the first painting, I thought it best to continue in the same vein. There is, I think a flavour of "Chinese Girl" by Vladimir Tretchikoff's in these paintings. It is mysterious to me to know why green is so appealing when trying to recreate flesh...... perhaps it is because we see this green lurking just beneath our flesh. For Egyptians the colour green was indicative of vegetation and new life. I like to think of my painting course as a new beginning that will flourish into a harvest of creative work. I can see my artwork here on the wall as part of the Twitter Art Exhibition in New York. Very proud to be part of the charity Foster Pride exhibition that raised over $6000 on the first evening at the private view through art sales.
This is week one of a two week pose. Adam the model took up pose in a Raft of Medusa type pose, a pose that a lot of tutors adopt i.e. prostrate. I have in the past drawn similar poses and it always reminds me of a poem by D H Lawrence 'The Hands of God'. In it Lawrence poses 'That awful and sickening endless sinking, sinking through the slow, corruptive levels of disintegrative knowledge when the self has fallen from the hands of God, and sinks, seething and sinking, corrupt and sinking still, in depth after depth disintegrative consciousness sinking the endless undoing, the awful katabolism into the abyss! Even of the soul, fallen from the hands of God!'
Here is my entry for the Man Made exhibition at the Beaney in Canterbury. The exhibition is a diverse range of work by talented artists in Kent. It is on until March 20th. Worth a visit.
The very nice Paul Russell, Galleries Officer at the Canterbury Museums and Galleries at the Beaney Tweeted this pic. It is the opening day of the Man Made exhibition a the Beaney in Canterbury on until March 20th.
The Front Room, The Beaney Selling Exhibition Wide ranging exploration of humans’ creative impact (positive and negative) on a range of environments: natural, domestic and urban – from architecture to appliances, transport to textiles, grand or miniscule. Selling exhibition by Kent based artists and photographers. I have put this slide show together to reflect the changing work I have done over the course of the 15 weeks attending the Adult Ed. life painting class. The last painting had the added benefit of being over 3 weeks and the others were 1 and 2 week poses, which for me as a very slow worker were much less satisfying. I honestly feel that life painting/drawing feeds into all aspects of art work and is the basis of all artwork. Have I enjoyed the last 15 weeks............hmmmm ..........well yes I have. I feel I have revisited something that needed looking at again and practising. I like the discipline of going every week and being among others doing the same activity and having feed back on the work I have produced. I will join the next classes and I think I will concentrate on hands and feet. See how that goes.
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AuthorNews and Events. Archives
June 2022
CategoriesAll Artwork © 2014 Wendy Murray. Protected by The Copyright Act and the provisions thereunder.
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