A artist’s life is nothing if not varied. Since I last posted here  I’ve painted a surfboard for charity; I’ve submitted a design for a Raymond-Briggs-inspired Snowdog for Martlets (Snowdogs by the Sea).

I’ve been doing a commission: a Night Sky painting for a very special person and date.  I’ve also finished Night Sky October 14th 1066, so there’s been a lot of silver leaf about (and even a touch of gold for Halley’s Comet in the latter).

Unfortunately I often have unwanted help with this very tricky job.

I’ve entered a couple of  Open Art competitions. I do hesitate about these; they cost time and money and are a total lottery.  A painting that doesn’t get selected for one might get a prize in another.   However in the south-east where I now live  there are thousands of artists and not so many galleries so it’s probably a gamble worth taking. Here’s a spring-like piece painted, for once, on board.

I’ve been painting; a few entirely new pieces, but mainly I’ve been trying to resolve and finish started work that has been put on one side through interruptions or lack of inspiration.  The thing just won’t work!  Or it’s somehow not ready to progress.   I shy away from getting to grips with these ‘preloved’ pieces but it’s a must.  It’s so easy just to chuck stuff out.  Sometimes you have to.  But experience shows that if you give up too easily, some of your best work would never see the light of day.  There has to be some benefit to growing older!

At the top of this post are a pair of pieces that I’ve finally finished and put on Artfinder.  (Currently it’s the only way to buy my work online though I intend to change this .)

Here are the links:

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<iframe src=“http://www.artfinder.com/marketing/artwork/trees-at-speed-2/?scheme=dark&user_id=386705&size=large” width=”450px” height=”549px”></iframe>

This pair of  mixed media paintings are all about speed – what do you see when you look at trees from a car as they flash past?  So it’s ironic that through interruptions I lost momentum (and  confidence) while painting them.  I had to put them on one side for a couple of months.  Then suddenly one day I could see that they were ‘right’ after all and managed to finish them quite fast.  I often think it’s a matter of how much sleep I’ve had!

I’ve  been to the Affordable Art Fair, though as usual feedback re sales is slow.  I’ve put out a Wolf at the Door newsletter – and, help. it’s nearly time for the next one,  Here’s the link if you’d like to know more about what’s been going on in the Jill/Wolf studio: Wolf newsletter

What has taken up lots of time behind the scenes is the slow build-up to Brighton and Hove  Artists’ Open House which, this year, runs for five weekends from the end of April.   Getting the artists together (major last-minute changes this year), briefing them,  preparing and proofing entries for the printed brochure and also  Hove Arts. The house has had a lick of paint. The garden has been given a spring-time tidy.

And now the real work starts.  Finishing, framing and labelling my own work.  Tidying the house.  Particularly my studio! Putting up the exhibition panels (above).  Preparing publicity and  sorting dates.  Organising, organising…not my favourite.  More soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, my studio is still a shambles.  So what’s new?  Nothing, but I sort of feel I can’t work in there till I’ve tidied it up.  (Though as soon as it’s tidy I’ll create another mess.)  So I keep removing work and doing it elsewhere.  The kitchen, for the light and space.  The garden, where I can spatter the paving-stones without major drama.  Anywhere, really.  It’s not just painting; it’s finishing, maybe spraying with fixative, framing….

I’ve been on two courses about the business/practical side of art since my last post.  Mind you, I haven’t done much of the homework yet, but at least I know what it  ought to be.  I’ll write about these in a themed blog soon.

I have also been painting.  Two strands.  One is the frustrating one of trying to make some unfinished pieces work, ones which have been abandoned for a while.  Mostly they were on one side because I wasn’t sure how to resolve them; sometimes it’s just because I’ve been interrupted for too long and lost the thread.  Just life, in fact.  They lose momentum, I lose confidence.

But I have finished some work.  Here are one or two pieces, rather blue; some hot colours in my next post:

 

 

 

 

 

The other strand, much more exciting, is tackling a trio of large canvases.   All night skies on different dates.   One is a commission, one is a dry run, and one is destined for the 1066 anniversary celebrations later this year.  950 years since the Battle of Hastings!  As I was a medievalist before I was an artist this is really fascinating to me. So, to follow last year’s  painting of the night sky when Magna Carta was sealed, 800 years ago, I thought I’d have a go at October 14th, 1066.

People must always have looked up into the night sky, wondered what portents it held for them, and felt their own insignificance.   I  was also inspiredby the wondrous Bayeux Tapestry (woven soon after the Conquest), with its seamless narrative of ships and horses and archers and knights and dragons and banquets and buildings and mutilated limbs,  It has a running visual and written commentary.  In the border one section shows Halley’s Comet as it appeared in April of that year.  People wondered at it – what it could portend for the country and for them?  They feared the worst.  As people do.

All this in a canvas nearly as tall as me – and (thankfull) much wider. The sky, with the correct(-ish) alignment of planets and stars, and  sumptuous cobalt and ultramarine and Prussian blues – plus touches of silver leaf –  and cartoon-like borders inspired by the Tapestry. I’ve never done anything like this before.

 

During my exhibition in Battle last year I secured support for the project from the director of the Battle Festival, which takes place in October and is always good,  but this year will be fantastic (Battle Festival).  My painting will be part of an astronomy exhibition.

Hastings has its own festival in September and that too is going to be a very special event : I’m still looking for the right display place(s) there for my painting . Root 1066 International Festival of Contemporary Arts.

 

People have been very helpful and I hope it will  be on show during both events.  More in due course.  It’s been a good excuse to visit those two towns, each lovely in a different way.  Battle has its wonderful Abbey, and Hastings the most spectacular views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also chanced on Vanessa Marr’s latest duster show, in the window of the enticing Made in Hastings shop.  Her Women and Domesticity project is off next to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill – well done, Vanessa!: duster project.  You might recognise my  own Ironing is Pants and Judith Berrill’s It’s So Much Fun with a Feather Duster!  I have also decorated a surfboard for a charity auction….

Finally, here’s the link to my latest Wolf at the Door newsletter:  More here: The Wolf sniffs some spring air.