paintings prints and stuff

Vivien Blackburn's work in the Urban/Rural show We've just hung a group show at the The Eye Project, Urban/Rural show.  If you want to come and see it it's on for a month - well worth seeing, 11 lovely artists and some fabulous work. Those large canvasses are 40 inches square. There are rural landscapes, flowerscapes, intriguing textile work including a large knitted building, abstracts .... something for everyone. It's in the gallery below the cafe in the Adult Education Centre at the top of Wellington street, Leicester, opposite Fenwicks.  Meet the Arttists day is Saturday 1st April 10-2.  Come and have a chat with us?

sketch in Derwent tinted charcoal Last week I went to the Lowry exhibition at the Djanogly gallery, Nottinghm University with my class.   It was fascinating.  I didn't know a lot about Lowry, though I liked his large cityscapes - we have a very good one in the gallery here. What I hadn't seen before were paintings like this one, a self portrait , done when his mother was dying - it's uncomfortable  - the grief, the lack of sleep, the battling on with stiff-upper-lip  - it's all there in bleak uncompromising detail. The text next to paintings and the catalogue ( I couldn't resist, I bought one, the colour repro and quality is excellent) were very good, setting the scene - the wars, the bombsites,  the area suffered devastating damage, explaining the open areas in a densely built industrial area of the city.   Apparently some remained right up to the 1970's.   The Depression, the death of the cotton industry, a huge employer, adding to the high toll of u

I'm taking part in an exhibition at the weekend with friends - we meet up once a month to critique work in progress and generaly discuss art matters, exhibitions and arrange to go out to exhibitions or sketch and a couple of times a year we put on a a show like this. Link to our website This is in Leicestershire, a few miles north of Leicester - if anyone is in the area, do pop in.  

There is an exhibition coming up in mid July by one of my all time favourite living artists - David Prentice.  It's at a great spacious gallery in Moreton in Marsh, the John Davies Gallery .   As yet the images aren't on the website, but they will be nearer to the time. It's a retrospective of his work in celebration of his 75th birthday, with work going back many years.   A great chance to see the development of ideas and the strong individual ideas that weave through his work.  I highly recommend buying the catalogue and reading the interview. DP walks daily in the Malvern Hills, sketching and observing.   Then he works in the studio, huge canvasses, pastels, watercolours, intimate smaller pieces - all with this keen observation and wonderful handling of colour and light and a sense of place, time, passing weather systems, movement. Get there if you can. The paintings are so much more in real life than a tiny image onscreen can show. Get to see it if you c

I've been working on a catalogue for the small group of friends I meet up with once a month. It's to be used for a proposal for a group show at a really good venue. The introduction page Not quite finished - but this is pretty much how the pages will look - one each, one large image, statement, small image and contact details/web addresses (which I've removed here). I'm waiting for a couple of images and statements. It is A5, will be on heavy paper and will be wire bound for ease of page turning. I wanted to keep it very simple, the covering letter etc does all the talking, this is just a flick through, who we are and what we do. Mary our secretary will do those - my responsibilites are catalogue, posters, publicity. What do you think? The rather long winded name of our group pre-dates my membership and that of several of us - we sometimes think of changing it but we've built up a reputation under that name, which makes it difficult ..... and then there's the

Catalogue design in progress - my page and the cover in progress I'm busy at the moment creating an A5 catalogue for our small group for an application we are putting together. We'll each have a page for a statement, one large image and 3 small, plus contact details/website (blurred here) Text is grey. The grey squares will show the other members work when finished. I may change my images, it's yet to be decided. I'm using Publisher I think I may have it ring bound but haven't quite decided yet. To ring bind or staple? (and I haven't got a long arm stapler) What do you think? I want to keep it clean and simple. Comments welcome :>)

Approaching Rain, detail, oil on canvas, studio painting from plein air sketches, Vivien Blackburn Organising an exhibition as a group: This will depend on the type of group - I belong to large organisations who have committees, members voted in, who arrange and hang the shows. These may be juried and have a limit on the number of paintings that can be shown. This group is a small group of friends, who meet up once a month. We are all graduates/post graduates and critique each others work, talk about or arrange visits to exhibitions and put on shows of our own work from time to time. Being small it's essential that everyone helps out with the organisation in our group and that ground rules are arranged in advance. Venue: For this show I came up with the venue but asked 2 other members to check it out and book it, to make sure that we would all be happy with it. The price was right, the space was just big enough. We were able to book it for a time that suited us, aimed at t

This lovely ancient building - The Old Grammar School built in the 1600's, is the venue for our exhibition.

If you are in the Market Harborough area at the beginning of December - come and visit the show :>) A painting by each of us is shown on the poster. It's in the Old Grammar School right in the centre. It's a lovely ancient timber building, next door to the church. Car parking nearby. Market Harborough is in between Leicester and Northampton.

work in progress, Mawgan Porth, 12 inches square, deep sided canvas This is one of the canvasses I'm juggling at the moment for the group show of small works (at the beginning of December). I'm working from sketches I did plein air in various media and trying to keep the immediacy of them. They aren't exact copies of the plein air work - they are altered a little and memory feeds into them. As I'm working in the studio (errrm much to himself's annoyance .... the kitchen for the best light) I can work wet over dry as well as wet in wet, scumbling scratching through etc Any thoughts?

Here are that last series of paintings at Mission Trails Park in California - photo courtesy of Ester Roi who visited and did a write up on the show here . Her blog is well worth a visit. Thank you Ester :>) It's interesting to see the different trends in framing in the US and here. American friends all seem to use these wide dark frames (Louise kindly framed our work for us). Here the trend is all for pale frames - soft neutrals, limed ash, white etc So it's interesting to see how my work looks framed so differently :>) The purple wall also echoes the colour in several of them! You can see the images better ..... here and details of the venue ... here

The website showing the exhibition with friends that opens this weekend - at Mission Trails Regional Park Gallery in California (near San Diego). Link to Ester Roi's write up the show Anyone in the area please go and support us :>) Taking part in reverse alphabetical order are: Katherine Tyrrell - known to you all :>) - beautiful work with coloured pencils and a writer Louise Sackett - our excellent organiser for this show and talented painter. Gayle Mason - who does the most gorgeous, luminous-eyed animals Nicole Caulfield - amazing portraits and still life in coloured pencil me 3 artists in England and 2 in America, our 6th member is sadly (for us) too busy writing best sellers at the moment to do much artwork and so couldn't take part. Last year we all showed together in Virginia which was fun. I'm looking forward to seeing photos of the show when it's hung. This is where the series of trees and pools was headed :>) It has been a year in the planning

Today I went to the Open Studio of a very very talented local woodcarver, Jenny Cook , who is in one of the groups I belong to. These 2 are details of one I would have dearly loved to have bought - but can't afford :( And below is the whole piece. It brings back vivid memories of Grand Harbour , Valletta, Malta. I lived in Malta in my teens and Grand Harbour holds special memories - it's a spectacular harbour with fortifications by the Knights of St John from 16C There were also a lovely series of local cottages .... lighthouses .... gorgeous little cupboards, painted beautifully .... flowers ..... I nearly bought one that I really couldn't afford but was saved from myself when someone else bought it :>( ...... The work is mainly made from reclaimed wood, carved and painted. Jenny's studio is a converted stable in the garden of her cottage and I am very very deeply seriously envious! it looks out onto beautiful cottage garden flowers and is light and spac

Flowers in my lawn, June 2010 Why would you dig these pretty weeds/flowers out of your lawn? I'd rather enjoy looking at them and spend the time going to art events :>) So ........ On Friday I went to Patchings Art Festival for the first time. The idea was to see one friend - Gayle Mason , a very talented animal/wildlife artist at her stand there and to meet up with another friend, Katherine Tyrrell at my local station, travel up to Patchings together and have an art/chat-filled day. We had complementary tickets. See Katherine's review of the show here. There was a lot of chat! I also kept bumping into people I knew, which was very nice :>) more chat! Katherine and I had taken sketchbooks to discuss and we had Gayles work in progress and originals around us - lots of discussion :>) Patchings - I'd been considering whether it was worth a stand for a small group I belong to, for another year, but the verdict was a definite 'no'. The event is

Field of Dreams, 24" x37", David Poxon For the last couple of years I've mentioned the work of David Poxon in the RI watercolour exhibition at the Mall Galleries . Last year he was kind enough to send me images of work at a resolution that really shows his skill off to advantage. Today I opened my emails to see that he'd sent me these 2 with permission to use them here :>) Thank you David :>) Do click on them to see them larger - they are well worth it. Catch, 12"x17", David Poxon The word that came to my mind was 'sustaining' - this word was applied to a painting of mine by a buyer and I think it was one of the nicest compliments I've ever had. Sustaining - there is so much in these to keep you revisiting - noticing new things, admiring textures, subtle colours, lost edges, mysterious areas, intense observation , lovely use of paint, unusual and interesting subject matter, the compositions work in an abstract way, quiet areas vs bu

Just a quick update on the Shirley Trevena exhibition for anyone planning to go. It's well worth the trip. She uses paint so beautifully - lovely marks and use of colour and drama. And some new developments with a series of gorgeous abstracted landscapes from the year she spent living in the Dordogne. If you like Barbara Rae's work then I think you'll like these. The exhibition is now actually at the Orange Street Gallery - which is only a few doors down from the originally advertised gallery space (part of the Goldmark Gallery) - so whilst the Goldmark is well worth a visit, you won't find her work there. Sadly this will be the last show there as the owner, John Gilboy, is going to spend his time painting and spending a lot of time in France. I'm now off to finish that large canvas .....

Trees, digital image, Vivien Blackburn A friend, Louise Sackett, has arranged an exhibition in November/December 2010, for a small group of us, in the gallery at Mission Trails Regional Park - there were over 100 applications and only 12 exhibition slots - and we were chosen :>) Taking part are: Louise Sackett , Nicole Caulfield , Gayle Mason , Katherine Tyrrell - and Vivien Blackburn . So in November/December 2010, if you are near San Diego and the Mission Trails Regional Park you will be able to see the Park's very first exhibition of artwork by an international group of artists - us :>) It should be a good and very varied exhibition. And Louise is a heroine as she's arranging frames in the US, to keep the costs down for Gayle, Katherine and I who have to ship from England. All that framing 8>O to do

Durer etching This morning I was at the local art gallery and museum with an art group I belong to. One of the members had organised for us to be taken down to the basement and be given a tour of some of the 800 oil paintings and 3,500 watercolours, plus hundreds of prints, miniatures, 3D works and more, that they store there. Simon Lake, curator and conservator gave us a fantastic tour. A highlight for me was a lovely polished wooden sketching box with a palette in the lid and bottles of powdered pigments and oil to mix them with. It belonged to Sir George Beaumont and was from the mid 1800's - before tubes were available. Paints were freshly mixed and stored in a pigs bladder. We saw his paintings (interesting but not having a wow factor for me) and the box that he'd used :>) There were still dry pigments and oils in the containers and some more in papers sealed with wax. I love the 'real' and human elements like this. It was absolutely delightful.

Yesterday I went to an exhibition of The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour in London at the Mall Galleries. It was wonderful and vibrant and extremely diverse. What I love about this society is their openness - to them watercolour is about making paintings and not making pictures in narrow confines dictated by some committee who are full of 'thou shalt nots'. Watercolours were mixed with acrylic, gouache, pastel., oil pastel, charcoal, collage and more making for vibrant imaginative work alongside beautifully subtle pieces. Photo realism sat next to sensitive painterly realism, dynamic abstracted pieces and pure abstracts. Here are some links to work by the artists, sadly there is nowhere to see the actual work in the show - the Mall Galleries really need to improve their website. It was well worth the trip and Ros and I had a great day. The weather was fantastic - warm and sunny, Notes: The knockout of the show for me was Bob Rudd . They were large paintings,

I've got an exhibition next week with some friends at a local gallery. These are a few of the paintings I have going into it. Life is a bit hectic with the exhibition, inspections at 2 of the colleges I teach at and family health problems continue :>( This is also a try out of the slide show Casey Toussaint told me about, that she used to show her book in the FPP exchange so effectively - I''ll use it to show you my book if this works OK. Here is a link to see Casey's gorgeous book http://caseytoussaint.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/check-out-my-slide-show/ - not to mention a great blog :>) so do take a look.