I'm expecting a really quiet week on the art front. I won't be into the studio until Friday as I have a packed week full of my son's Christmas parties and concert and Christmas shopping.
I am currently awaiting the results of some recent applications but I have a feeling that I won't hear anything until after Christmas.
I have a meeting on Friday with an Art consultant/project management who is looking to represent artists in the area so that is quite constructive.
I plan to be in the studio all day Friday and I think that will probably be the last time this side of Christmas.
All my current paintings have been brought to ,finally. I had to get them done as I had to submit images for selection for a group show at Derby Museum and Art Gallery in 2009.
I am still awaiting my material budget for the residency before I can start any more paintings. I need so many materials, acrylic paint, oil paint, medium, stretcher frames…the list goes on. It is really frustrating having to wait for the money.
I am looking forwrd to the new year when I can turn my attention to some different paintings
I've been into the studio twice this week, albeit for relatively short periods. I have however managed to get some painting done.
I have also spent some time this week shadowing an artist workshop in the local primary schools. As part of my residency I am required to run some art workshops in schools or the community. I have chosen primary schools for the initial workshops, but having no experience of dealing with children in a school environment I thought it would be best to see how the professionals did it.
I shadowed a group called the Babbling Vagabonds. This particular workshop was run by just one of their members, Tara. She ran a workshop on creating shadow puppets. It was a really fantastic experience to see the workshops running. Tara was exceptional and it was obvious that she was really used to doing it and that she could do it standing on her head. The workshop captured the childrens imagination and the children tackled it with real gusto and enthusiasm. It was really useful for me to see things like behaviour management, including children and also to witness the limited attention spans of young children.
It frightens me that I have put myself up for running workshops. There is no way that I could be as natural and driven with the children as Tara was so I realise that I need to look at what my strengths are and build an interesting workshop that will hopefully hold their attention and allow their imagination to run wild.
It was a really useful thing to watch these workshops. Although I know I am not quite ready yet I do feel it is a slightly less daunting prospect than it was last week.
Thank you Tara!
Today was a day I could concentrate solely on painting, pure heaven!
It was a bit of a breakthrough day, it happens now and again, I stumbled upon something so obvious that I can't believe that I was stupid enough not to get it initially. I spent time experimenting with the way I was applying the oil paint and found it worked really well.
I should be going to a meeting tomorrow to discuss a possible solo show in 2010, so fingers crossed.
I can't wait until Friday so I can continue with the paintings
My exhibiton has at the Dome in Buxton has been running since last Monday at it seems to be going really well.
I have received some fantastic feedback and praise from people in the arts and total strangers who have just seen the work and felt that they had to respond to the work and feed back to me. It is really nice when someone takes the time and effort to contact you to let you know how much they love your work and what it means to them.
I have had some great news recently, I have been asked by Derby Museum and Art Gallery to put a few pieces of work in their curated landscape exhibition in April next year. The work will be exhibited alongside landscape from their collection and also alongside work from established and successful artists who deal with landscape such as Michael Porter, David Ainley and Nick Hedderley.
I have also been asked to put in a proposal for exhibition to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.
On top of all that I have managed to get into the studios a couple of times last week and have started 3 more paintings. Hopefuly I should be able to get in and work on them on Wednesday and Friday.
I am doing some shadowing of art workshop in schools next week. As part of the residency I will be running some workshops in the spring so I thought it would be a good idea to see how it is sone. I have no experience of runnin workshops for Children so it will be really interesting to observe and hopefully learn something to help me when I do my own.
