paintings prints and stuff

I'm busy with stuff I'd rather not be doing - like lesson planning etc! so only bits of painting going on :( I found this online and thought it's great! just like my spoilt little madame when she's in 'I vant to be alone' mode :)

Alfreda told me how to add a slide show :) Thank you Alfreda :)

Do your sketchbooks (if you use them) reflect your personality? Mine do. They contain 'finished' looking work, quick scribbles, working out ideas, jotting down ideas, experiments, photos, digital printouts, found bits - anything and everything chaotically crammed together! I do tend to keep books for certain projects but not always. I have a couple of friends - one an architect who paints and the other with a background in business who is an accomplished painter - who have the neatest sketchbooks imagineable! Just fairly finished pieces and no chaos Mine does reflect the way I think. I'm almost totally right brained and organisation is NOT my 'thing'. I think around a subject, going off at a tangent and coming back again. These friends decide they are going to C and therefore steps A and B are necessary for them to get there - I simply don't function this way! sometimes I wish I could. I really have to make myself be organised when I have to be but I hate it. s

I've finally been managing to find some time to paint. I don't like artificial light so I really need to paint through the morning and into the early afternoon and then stop. When the weather is grim and grey I hate the light to work in. I do wish I had a south facing studio, I know north facing is traditional but I really don't like it. I have been working on the 5 seascapes - tall and thin - 48in+ high and 12-14 in wide. Then I decided to work on some more trees. This is the trees/landscape in progress. It has quite a way to go and this isn't a great photo as it was taken with flash and misses some details, like where I've scratched thin branches through to the underpainting of oranges and drab purples and it's a bit dark. details: It's done in oil on canvas over another painting (that I hated!) in oranges and greens and dull purples. I've used the colours to shine through the snow and come through in the bark of the trees. I also scratched through to

Yesterday I went down to the London Art Fair in Islington. I've been going every year for quite a long time as it's a great chance to see lots of contemporary art in one place. Over 100 leading UK galleries take part with stands showing their best artists. You can see the Scottish Galleries, Welsh, Cornish ......... from all over the country - all under one roof. It's a chance to see work by favourite artists and discover new ones. Amongst those I'd come across and liked before was Paul Emsley - http://www.paulemsley.co.uk/ - who does very large charcoal drawings that are superb, subtle pieces. Another was Kurt Jackson with some wonderful seascapes on show with the Lemon Street Gallery in Truro and Messums from Cork Street in London. There is a link to his website in the list at the bottom of the screen on the right. Others I like such as Len Tabner, Peter Prendergast, Kyffin Williams, Barbara Rae and Lucian Freud were represented - all are worth googling for stunning

I've been working on these seascapes - they aren't finished yet and it's a very bad photo I'm afraid but I'll post better images when they are finished. I like these long thin images hung in groups of 3, 5 or 7 - looking across them adds the dimension of time - the weather changes, the tide comes in or goes out, night falls. It's a speeded up version of a year spent painting on the beaches. They are about 48 ins tall but only 12/14ins wide on gallery wrap canvas - I make my own - well that's not quite true! My father and my husband make the stretchers to my specifications and I then stretch the canvas onto them. Some of the underpainting is thin acrylics on raw canvas - that way I can get some watercolour-like marks. Then it's sealed and I continue with oil paint. These have been done with Griffin Alkyds for speed as they dry overnight. I've also spent hours revamping and rewriting my site. Katherine gave me lots of good advice on what the search en

The London Art Fair starts today. I've been going down to see it with friends for a good few years now and it's usually really interesting. Top galleries from all over the UK have stands and it's a chance to see a very wide range of contemporary art - everything from conceptual to graphic to photorealist to abstract and everything in between. This is the Edgar Modern stand a couple of years ago from their site. One artist I always look for is Barbara Rae - she's usually represented by a large glowing painting that sings out when you look down from the mezzanine floor above. She's a Scottish painter who is a real colourist, showing the ongoing influence of the Scottish Colourists in Scottish painting. Barbara Rae: I'm planning to go at the weekend with friends. It's a great chance to see some of the best contemporary painting, from all over the country, in one place. Islington (where the exhibition is) has a good gallery as well - The Hart Gallery. In recent

This was posted on another forum and I thought it was interesting. According to Art Business Today, these are the Top 10 best-selling subjects for paintings in the UK: 1. Traditional landscapes. 2. Local views. 3. Modern or semi-abstract landscapes. 4. Abstracts. 5. Dogs. 6. Figure studies (excluding nudes). 7. Seascapes, harbour, and beach scenes. 8. Wildlife. 9. Impressionistic landscapes. 10. Nudes. I've never 'painted to sell' but always painted for me , naturally working in series and then taking them to galleries. I'm often asked what the top selling subjects are and some of these surprised me - for instance dogs being so high on the list. And where are cats? :) - much more beautiful! I'm feeling very cheerful - a repair to the car - which had got very noisy, particularly once you wanted to go over 50mph, proved to be a simple repair, no spare parts and time only . Steve, my travelling mechanic, who I trust totally, charged just £46 to fix it, fix the

Do you stick to just one medium? do you move from one to another depending on mood or the needs of a particular subject? do you mix media? do you enjoy trying out a new medium? I realised recently how many people stick to just one medium and are worried about trying others. I also realised that most of the artists that I admire use a wide variety of media and also mix their media and break 'rules'. I don't like rules! guidelines - ok, suggestions - ok, rules???? no. I started out, like a lot of people, using watercolours and also gouache (with an early backbround in design) - they are relatively clean, odourless and don't involve masses of equipment - well until you become addicted to painting and then your equipment and tools seem to spread to fill every room in the house - my husband certainly thinks so. I still enjoy my watercolours and tend to use them with other media - sometimes with touches of chalk pastel, sometimes oil pastel, ink, gouache - sometimes all of th

A pair of cheeky squirrels have moved into the garden and are a delight to watch - I keep getting distracted by them! Our garden birds like the cheap scones you get in the economy range in Sainsburys - I can't remember how my husband discovered this but he now buys them regularly for them - then our cat decided she loved a bit as well and then second cat acquired the taste - now we have squirrels who like them - it's a good job they are cheap! I was watching this one eating and then he/she decided to get down to the ground down the 5ft 6in-ish pole to the bird table - he swung round so he was hanging by his back feet - hung there quite relaxed for a couple of minutes, meditating on whether he really wanted to get down, nose pointing down, just little back feet latched on supporting him - then suddenly had second thoughts and effortlessly swung up back onto the table and continued eating!

I don't really do resolutions - being of very weak willpower! but ..... I aim to do more printmaking this year, my favourite collagraphs, but also I want to have a go at woodblocks, encouraged by Diane Cutter - thanks Diane :) ( http://www.dianecutter.com ) I also want to take part in another international print exchange but using traditional techniques for this one - last time I did digital images. I received some gorgeous prints from all over the world and it was great fun as they dropped through the letterbox. Then - I want to get work out to galleries who said 'yes' last year and who I didn't have time for. I want to continue exploring the flowers 'up-close-and-personal' alongside working on plein air landscapes/seascapes/woods and trees and studio work on a large scale in the various series ..... and continue to experiment with media. I want to do more large paintings and less small works as I find them less cramping, it's easier to get