The other 'artists in residence' at Nannup!

All parents think their kids are amazing, right?!  But sometimes my daughters amaze even me! These are a couple of the drawings they did while hanging out in the gallery with me.  If they can do this at 8 and 11, I can only imagine how brilliant they'll be when they're grown up!

There was a Belly-dancing extravaganza happening in town, so Biggest Munchkin (who is 11, turning 12 in August) drew this beautiful dancer.  I just love the movement she's captured, and the expression on the dancer's face...you can just see the music moving through her!

And a forest fairy by Littlest Munchkin, who is 8 (9 in July).  Sightly influenced by a couple of Mummy's paintings, but all her own work, and just took my breath away!

I've decided not to do the exhibition in August, though I'd dearly love to.  Just not enough time to do a whole new lot of work, I've just started a new part-time job, and we have some big plans for the next few months.  So maybe next year, fingers crossed!

I think my body decided after the exhibition, "Right, all that palaver is over, time to go on strike!"  So in the last week, I've had a migraine, got a cold sore, and a lovely dose of the flu as well.  So it's Phlegm Central here at the moment.  Sigh, I need a holiday I think!

Post-Exhibition madness!

So I'm back home finally, after a week away looking after my little exhibition, staying with my in-laws and being treated to my mother-in-law's marvelous cooking (I swear if I stayed too long I'd put on about 10kgs!), enjoying the peace and friendliness of the lovely town of Nannup in our beautiful South-West, and some rather odd (and slightly disturbing) Autumn weather.  Odd in that, although we did get some much needed rain (rather a lot actually, I was slightly worried I might open up one morning and find the floor under a foot of water), it stayed stubbornly, UNautumnly warm.  Almost tropical on some days.

But all-in all, I had a wonderful time, lots of lovely people came through and told me how beautiful my work was (always a bit dangerous, you don't want to find your head has swelled so much you can't get it out of the doorway!), and BOUGHT some!  In fact, a lady walked in five minutes after I opened up on the first day (which also happened to be my birthday), wandered around for a few minutes, then came up to the front table and said, "You see that big one down the back?  Consider it sold!"  I think I stammered stupidly for a bit and looked blank, before I managed to answer.  So "Shipwreck Coast - Tethys" now has a new home.  And shortly afterwards a couple came in and bought two landscapes.  I think I wore a stupid grin for the whole rest of the day!  The final sold tally was 7 paintings (3 large, 4 small), 2 larger wood hangers, and a lot of cards and prints.  So costs covered, a small profit made, a very pleasant week spent and a whole lot learnt.  Although, sadly, I still haven't learnt how to tell beforehand what might sell and what won't. It seems to be a complete fluke each time, and utterly unpredictable!

View from the outside, with my extremely last minute prayer flags, and a couple of signs/posters that in retrospect are too small (but these are the things we learn!)

 View from the doorway.  You can just see the red dot under 'Shipwreck Coast' down the back!

Me with very much needed coffee in hand, and a big grin that hung about all day.

This is the lady who bought 'Tethys'...I'm probably stammering "sorry, WHAT?...are you serious?!"  And my two munchkins in matching 'galaxy pants', which they love and will wear till they just about stand up by themselves!

A blurry munchkin in front of the cards and prints.

My girls spent quite a lot of time in the gallery with me, they were good as gold and did some gorgeous drawings themselves.  So I put them up on the wall too, and they got at least as many comments as I did!

Talesingrs in the display cabinet.

Small paintings, including a couple of blank spaces where two little autumn leaves were sold and went home with their new owner straightaway.

'Rain Coming' in the corner, one of the two landscapes that sold.

The back wall after I decided to shuffle things around and put something that hadn't sold in the 'magic spot'!  The landscape on the RH wall, was hanging where 'I am the Temple' is hanging, and it sold as well.

'Titania' also sold, she was the out and out favourite of all the Midsummer Trio, I sold quite a few prints and cards of her as well. Always interesting to see which ones will prove the most popular, and seemingly impossible to predict! I might do another (although different) Titania, because I think the other two actually need her, they don't work on their own so well.

Cordelia in the corner, for when I got bored sketching or stitching.  I got some very nice comments about my music as well!

So now...all I have to do is clean my house (my family room looks like something exploded in it, the bathroom is looking feral, and I have boxes and crates and bubblewrapped paintings that all need to go somewhere!), then I have to start working on the next exhibition...because they've asked me to come back in August!  Oh dear, here I go again.............!

Exhibition madness #2...........

 So, I've just measured the trailer, and I'll be able to get all my large paintings into it...but absolutely NOTHING else!  Oh dear......

For those of you not from around here (Western Australia), Nannup is about 3 and a half hours drive south of Perth.  A beautiful place to have one's first ever solo exhibition, but it certainly presents some problems.  I'm staying down there for the week, and so are the girls, so that means packing for all three of us for a week, plus all the large paintings, small paintings, prints, cards, print/card display racks, price printouts and catalogues, business cards, postcards, folding table and tablecloth, food/wine for the opening, some things to keep myself amused while babysitting the exhibition (drawing and stitching, and Cordelia Guitar, of course), toolbox with everything I might possibly ever need for sticking, nailing, cutting, measuring, running repairs, screwing, taping, tyeing, glueing, fixing, and general unforeseen possibilities, because I can't just pop home if I forget something!  Phew!  And it just...isn't...going...to...fit!

So, I have two options.  First, and preferable (fingers crossed!), is that my mum and dad, who are heading down for the exhibition too, will be able to fit some of the larger paintings in their campervan, thus freeing up space in the trailer for folding table, toolkit, kids (only joking!) and so on.  The second option...a panic dash to Nannup this weekend to take stuff down.  Hmmm...I really don't have time!  So, keep all your collective fingers (and toes too, I'm sure it will help!) crossed that the first option is a goer!

In the meantime, here are some pics of the lovely little Garage Gallery, that I took when I was down at Easter.  I'm so glad my old uni 'stage management' tendencies are still alive and well...I measured EVERYTHING when I was there and took lots of photos, so I think I know where everything will fit and how it will look!

Wish me luck!

Looking inside from the front.  I love those old doors!

View inside, with the lighted display cabinet.  I'm going to use it in the same way, just the top, to show my wood hangers and small decorative pieces.

And a couple of familiar faces there in the doorway...my (extremely patient at the moment) Beloved, and my lovely Mother-in-law...who talked me into this!

Exhibition madness!

It's a whole month since I posted last, and the last week or so I've barely even checked my blogroll.  But I haven't been sitting on my laurels.  I've been BUSY!  Getting ready for this:

And so I've been busy painting, painting, painting...new things, and finishing off old things...like this one!

Blackwoodwife

Here's a quick preview of some of the other bits and bobs I've done.

I know some of these pics aren't the best...but I wanted to let you all see what I've been working on.  There's more, but not photographed yet.

This is my first ever solo exhibition, so exciting and scary...and so much still to do!  Wish me luck!

And finally...

Puck...with my Fox mask.

I'm still not 100% happy with this one, but I think it's mostly to do with the fact that Puck is such a rich and many layered character, with so many emanations from myth, folklore, pre-christian religions and so forth, that I could spend the rest of my life painting versions of him and still not get it.  He is, for me, also the Green Jack, who is the Green Man, and Herne/Cernunnos, and Robin Goodfellow, and probably Robin Hood, and Pan, and Loki, and many others too.  So not an easy chap to define.  But then, I don't really want to define him...that would diminish him.  I like his mutability, his changeability.  That's how he adapts and survives...even now.  He's still out there, I'm convinced of it.  I certainly hope so.

Oberon, King of Faery.

Well, I started working on Puck, but being the Trickster and Shapeshifter that he is, he refused to be pinned down.  So I left him alone to have a think about it (he AND I!) and went on with Oberon.  Hopefully he will be a little more contrite and co-operative now, and let me get on and finish his portrait, otherwise he won't get to hang in the gallery next to Titania.

So here is Oberon.  Looking a little alarming perhaps, but then, the King of Faery is no sweet little thing with glittery wings.  Faeries are not to be trifled with, and I've always thought Oberon had a bit of a dangerous streak (it's a pretty mean trick he plays on Titania) and he's always seemed to me to be the sort of faery you DON'T want to get on the wrong side of!  So here he is imagined as a kind of night faery, with crow feathers and skull, and eyes that can look right through you.  I THINK he's finished, but as with Titania, I'm still unsure whether or not to add some text down the side as I did for the Green Jack.  I rather like them as they are, so I might not.

Right, time to wrestle with Puck and try to get him to stand still so I can get a good look at him!

First painting for 2013...

I've been doing my usual trick, painting in my head instead of on paper or canvas.  It's fine for a while, tossing ideas around, mentally turning things around about to see how they look from different angles, or in different styles/media.  But ultimately there's no substitute for getting down to business and starting.  Because it's only then that the real magic starts, new ideas/directions appear, paths to take that you might never have discovered if you just kept going over the same ground in your head.  But still, I keep doing it and then find that actually starting gets harder and harder.  I have a little exhibition booked for late April, and though I have some work, I need to do more for it.  So I've been turning my brain in knots thinking about all manner of overly ambitious and complex possibilities, when there really isn't time for that, and what I really need to do it just get started on something, anything really, to start the year off and get back into the creative flow.  So today I stopped thinking and started doing.  This is the result.  Titania.  With gum (Eucalypt) leaves!  Acrylic, graphite and pencil on 20cm x 20cm canvas.  Though I don't think she's quite finished yet.  I might add a quote from the play down the side.

I recently saw another production of Midsummer Night's Dream that was rather lovely.  I've lost count of how many I've seen over the years, I think it's my favourite of Shakespeare's plays.  One of the most memorable was way back in 1990, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson's Renaissance Theatre production in London.  Wonderful stuff!  So I think there will be a Puck (though of course, the Green Jack is another version of Puck), and possibly an Oberon too.

And for an excellent blog post on the need to stop thinking about painting, or writing, or whatever, and get on to doing, check out Terri Windling's latest blog post On Beginnings.