Storm before the calm

Early morning, penny nab
Oils 8" x 16"

You know that saying 'calm before the storm'? Well, it's the other way round for me at the moment. I'm enjoying (enduring?) a week or two of heavy work in the studio getting odds and ends tied up before going to France in a few days time for three weeks of calm. So I've been finishing paintings, painting frames galore, waxing frames, varnishing and signing paintings, fitting paintings into frames, wrapping framed paintings, delivering paintings... the list goes on, but I've probably bored you enough!

I'll just show you this newly framed plein air painting then from my trip to Staithes last month. Oh and also, my £250 Pro Arte award arrived - feeling rather self indulgent I chose these absolutely gorgeous four watercolour brushes. Now I am rather afraid to use them, they're so special! Think I will take two of them to France with me to dabble in my sketchbook and see how I get on...

The latest round of seemingly never-ending framing has almost come to an end! Hurrah!

Ha ha! Someone on Facebook said the large brush in the middle looks ready to stand guard at Buckingham Palace! So funny, and true. It's now been named Buckingham.

Have you seen my Facebook page yet? Feel free to like it if you, erm, like it!

Lucky girl again!

My Winsor & Newton ROI prize :-)

Look what lovely treats arrived for me today! Prompted by my forthcoming trip I finally settled down with the Winsor and Newton catalogue to choose my prize goodies from winning the ROI event evening in December. 

I chose the compact artist's watercolour set because I really wanted to be able to keep part of my prize as a souvenir of the evening. I do actually love watercolours you might be surprised to hear, I just forget to use them! Anyway I thought this one would be great for 'on the go' with it's fourteen half pans of colour and mini sable brush. I now need to get in the habit of taking it around with me to add a little colour to my line drawings.

Yes I did order brushes too, even though I got my large Pro Arte prize haul only a few months ago. There are 'Monarch' and 'Galeria' brushes that I would hate to be without... and although I hardly ever ever throw a brush away I always seem to need new ones! In fact they just retire to a different jam jar...

Brand new brushes for Morocco! 

The other indulgence that you see here are a couple of tubes of paint I wouldn't usually buy as they're series 7 and retail at £27.50 a tube. I also thought they may come in handy in Morocco... cobalt blue deep and cobalt turquoise. Plus they are just heart-breakingly beautiful. 

Of course I run the risk that I might permanently add them to my palette and I'll be paying for them next time!  

Tomorrow I'm going over to the 'Spotted Dog' art group near Nottingham, to tutor a workshop in 'finding your style'. Hopefully everyone will take home lots of ideas to help them progress with their work.

Galley hill and brush prize!

Galley hill allotments

back to the allotments today

Finding your style workshop went really well yesterday, I think everyone left with a clearer idea of where their passions lie and how they can start to move from where they are now towards producing the paintings they want to be making. 

Today I got back to the allotments to finish this painting. It was so much warmer than Tuesday, with no rain or wind. Soon after I started I spotted this really great break in the clouds which I think adds a lot to the piece. I wondered afterwards whether I'd gone too far and overworked it, and I've been unsure of the composition too. 

After a few hours reflection though, I've decided I like it rather a lot! :-)

I'm afraid the photo isn't brilliant again!

Look at this and imagine my excitement - my Pro Arte brush prize arrived yesterday! That's 62 brushes!

I am such a lucky girl :-)

In case you are new to my blog and you are wondering, I won this prize for my painting 'Working from the model' in The Artist/Patchings exhibition this June. You can read about it here :-)