Going to market 2

When I went to visit the galleries a few weeks ago I discovered one of my original set of five "Going To Market" paintings had not been sold. I was rather pleased and decided to rather add it to my own collection for posterity. They all differed slightly in colour, dress and people. Hope you enjoy this one as well.

Anyone for Marbles

Just so the guys don't feel hard done by and imagined my world consisted only of the female gender I decided to go back into the unfinished file and dig out a painting I started in December last year.

The little boy playing marbles certainly invokes a bit of nostalgia which reminds me of an age when electronic toys did not exist. Children played safely outdoors and had loads of fun with simple toys. The dog looks as though he is keeping an eye on proceedings and is as intrigued with the game as the player.

I am currently working on two paintings that were commissioned, and should be finished in the next day or so. Both involve my feathered friends and have proved quite a challenge.

arte y pico awards

I started this blog with much scepticism and doubt, wondering if anyone would ever even find it amongst the millions of sites out there. I asked myself if anyone did perchance happen to stumble upon it, ( pun intended) what would they think?

Would they like or appreciate my art?

Would the public have anything good to say about my passion to create beautiful paintings?

These few months at entrecard have been an amazing awakening for me and I want to say a huge thank you to all the wonderful people out there that that have inspired me by their comments.

Recognition, be it hopefully for fame, not notoriety, is a basic human need and I feel priviledged to have my work recognised by so many people.

I am deeply honoured to be nominated for the art y pico award by Maitri from MAGIC AND MOMENTS AT DRAGONFLY COTTAGE. MAITRI'S writings and philosophies have been an inspiration to me, instilling a sense of calmness every time I visit her blog and read a new article. Maitri, my heartfelt thanks for sharing your philosophies and honouring me in this fashion.

The award however does not come without accepting the responsibility and daunting task of bestowing the same honour upon five other sites whom I feel meet the criteria set out by the originator of the award.

As the entre card community is blessed with such a huge number of talented writers, artists craftsmen and bloggers who qualify for this recognition the choice has not been an easy one.

Upon winning this award you are tasked with the following rules...
1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award. http://arteypico.blogspot.com/.

The following are my nominations.

1....Christy DeKoning - Travels in Watercolor
Christy DeKoning is a talented Canadian water color artist, who's beautiful art has inspired me.
I always look forward to each article and love to try out some of the techniques she uses. Thank you Christy for sharing your amazing art and talent with us.

2....THE SPITTING VESSEL
DURANO LAWAYMAN A.K.A BRAD SPIT your political thoughts and sentiments always have me looking forward to your next article. Your style of writing, mostly serious, sometimes witty, and command of the English language make your articles a pleasure to read. Your positive outlook and inspirational comments have meant a lot to me.

3....http://smadarstreasure.blogspot.com
Smadar is an Israeli bead work designer and artist. Her beautifully crafted bead work jewelery is a real treasure and I await each new creation with anticipation. Smadar please don't rehabilitate as the beauty charm and elegance of your creations will be sorely missed. Thank you for sharing your talent with us.

4....FINE ARTWORKS AND ORIGINAL PAINTINGS FROM A CREAKY EASEL
Sue Ellen Cowan is another talented Canadian Artist who's amazing fine art paintings and dragon statuettes are worthy of this award. Sue Ellen thank you for sharing your stunning artworks with us and all the best in your new home.

5....Wisdom Hypnosis Blogspot.com
Debbie is a practising hypnotist who shares her thoughts on hypnosis on her blog. As a firm believer in self hypnosis techniques I have found her articles useful and informative. Debbie is also an active participant in the ec forum and can add a lighter tone to some serious discussions with her wit and calming effect. Debbie thank you for sharing your valuable insights with us.

As I had never heard of this award I was quite surprised to receive it, what was even more surprising was that it was from someone whom I had no clue even took time to read my articles other than to drop an entre card. It might then come as a surprise to some I have nominated as I do not comment much and seldom participate in the ec forum. This lack of participation is not out of disinterest but rather a busy demanding life that leaves little time to do other than what is absolutely necessary.

Pumkin Patch Girl

This is another one of those paintings I started a while ago and for some reason I lost interest and left it in my unfinished paintings file. I hope someone finds some pleasure from this painting.

As an artist I attempt different subjects and start off very enthusiastically and half way through get distracted and start something else that appeals to me more at the time.

The current painting is then put on the back burner until I get the urge to carry on. I suppose being a woman it is also my prerogative to change my mind at the drop of a hat.

About a year ago I sent Graham on a mission to present my portfolio to various galleries. I will be honest I had tried previously on my own and lost my confidence due to the attitude and snotty remarks from some of the curators and managers of these galleries. I left their premises feeling rather inadequate and probably even a failure as an artist.

I am not going to generalise and say they are all like that, but there are many mean spirited snobs who are not artists themselves but pretend they are the experts and the only judges of what is good and bad art.

Fortunately Graham's faith in my ability never wavered and he took a day off work and did a 400 km round trip with my portfolio in hand presenting it at every Gallery he could find along the way. Sadly his car was wrecked on the way home when someone rear ended him at high speed and the euphoria of his success was somewhat dampened as a result.

He eventually arrived home having left a dozen or more of my paintings at various galleries on a consignment basis. Shortly after that we went to New Zealand for three months to see my daughter.

When we returned, the paintings at the galleries were all but forgotten, that is until two weeks ago when we decided to call some of the galleries to see if any had been sold. I must again be honest I did not have the courage to phone and see if any paintings had been sold. I just felt they might say they had tried to sell them and would I please come and remove them from their establishments as they were not good enough to sell.

To my amazement all but one had been sold and there were a few welcome cheques waiting for me. They had tried in vain to contact me while I was in New Zealand and eventually they gave up. What makes it even worse is that most of the painting were sold within a month or so of leaving them at the galleries and those galleries wanted more of my work.

The cheques were not earth shattering amounts, but the paintings did sell for way more than I ever imagined they would. This has restored my confidence in my ability and given my battered ego a much needed lift.

I suppose the lesson here is never give up, I cannot help thinking how many more might have been sold had I not bowed to the humiliating comments of a few pricks who don't have a kind word for a new kid on the block.

I am planning another trip to New Zealand in the next few weeks and will probably be away for three to six months. Most of my art is there and I am going to make a concerted effort to see if I can get some of my art into galleries over there. This time I will however leave a forwarding address and contact numbers with the local galleries who have taken more of my work.

Little Girl

I know its been a while since my last post and last painting in fact, so I decided to get off my but and finish a painting I started the end of last year. Painting people is not my forte and I suppose that's why I left it in the unfinished pile for so long.

I think my creative thoughts have left me in the lurch and so I have just titled it "Little Girl." I feel more comfortable painting birds and animals than people but hope this one appeals to someone out there.

To those who left comments and did not get a response my sincere apologies. We have a number of email addresses and all are monitored through a programme called e-prompter which uses a different colour button that flashes for each mail box when new mail arrives. Ordinarily I will be notified of new mail within 15 min of its arrival.

The last 2 weeks or so the little green button has not announced any new mail for this blog. By this afternoon I was starting to feel forgotten and neglected and decided to check the mailbox, lo and behold there were about 50 new messages.

I am not sure how or why this mailbox fell through the cracks and was not monitored but in future I will check the mail box regularly to make sure I do not miss any important mail. Thank you all for your comments I will try to respond to them all tonight.

Kiwi painting

Shortly after starting my blog I posted a water colour painting of a Kiwi the national bird of NZ. I think I was in a bit of a hurry to get new material for my blog and rushed through the painting. Recently I reviewed some of the paintings and decided I was not happy with the Kiwi painting.

It is generally quite difficult to rework water colours, or maybe its just me, I find it much easier to rework, alter or repair oil paintings than water colour paintings. Anyway I changed the old painting and this is the final result. It looks like a completely new painting with very little resemblance to the previous one.

Solitary Watcher

This water colour painting of a solitary male lion reminds me of the savage brutality and magnificent beauty of the African plains. Lions generally enjoy a lazy lifestyle, inactive through the heat of the African day, mostly hunting for 2 to 4 hours at night.

Young male lions are expelled from the pride after 2 years of age. Once expelled they become nomads or form coalitions with brothers to do their hunting. They remain solitary without female company until they are strong enough to challenge a dominant male of an existing pride and drive him into exile, to once more to live his life as a nomad.

This savage and sometimes fatal confrontation determines whether a new male will lead the pride. The brutal events that follow see the new dominant male expel all the young males and kill the existing cubs to rid the pride of the old gene pool and any future contenders to his throne.

The new male does this to bring the females into oestrus so that he can start mating with them immediately and ensure any new cubs carry his genes. Even though the females come into heat and mate with the new male, they do not bear any young until the new male has proved that he is capable of defending the pride against other lions challenging his leadership.