Around the World Blog, My Year as a Painter.

As I said last time, I’m not here very often; life seems to be busy, busy, busy these days. However; my friend Kathy contacted me last week and asked me to write a blog about my painting for something called ‘Around the World Blog’. This is what she wrote, 

Hi Loretta,
Here is a copy of the information I received from Tammy

Her post is rather long, mine won't be, and yours doesn't have to be either.  Just follow these four basic Questions.

What am I working on?
How does my work differ from others?
Why do I write/create what I do?
How does my writing/creative process work?

That's it, quite simple really, once complete just tag three more creative people and ask them to to do their own Around the World Blog.
My post is the 20th. Yours is the 27th and whoever you tag would post on or around November 4th
Kathy 

This is Kathys blog

http://kathyinozarks.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/i-am-pleased-with-my-first-eco-printed.html

and this is Tammys blog,  the person who nominated Kathy

http://gone2thebeach.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/around-world-blog-hop.html

As there doesn’t seem to be any sort of central place to leave links for the ‘Around the world’ blogs; here are a few more I found by doing a simple google search. Most of the ones I found are about different types of fabric arts/ crafts but I’m sure there are others I didn’t find that are about art/ painting etc.

http://nanacompany.typepad.com/nanacompany/2014/08/snippets-of-life-around-the-world-blog-hop.html

http://badskirt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/around-world-blog-hop.html

http://www.kimwerker.com/2014/06/02/around-world-blog-hop/

http://www.bloombakecreate.com/2014/10/around-the-world-blog-hop/

http://littleislandquilting.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/around-world-blog-hop.html

http://www.kitchentablequilting.com/2014/08/around-world-blog-hop.html

http://www.thecatyouandus.com/blog-hop/

http://www.aquiltinglife.com/2014/08/around-world-blog-hop.html

http://trilliumdesign.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/around-world-blog-hop.html

http://craftyshenanigans.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/around-world-blog-hop.html

Question; What am I working on?

I’m working on Painting, no particular painting at the moment because it’s nearing the end of the year and 2014 was the year I decided to dedicate to painting and exhibiting. I guess the answer could be ‘I’m working on painting full time and exhibiting my work for one whole year’. Of course my painting didn’t start at the beginning of this year, I’ve always painted. I painted when I was at school, I painted when I left school, I went to Art College and painted. After Art College painting almost gave me up, life got in the way, I did all the stuff other people do, had a career, married, had children got the mortgage and became far too bogged down with bringing up the kids and paying the bills to think much about painting.  There wasn’t space or time in my mind or my life to be very creative for a few years. That changed about ten years ago when I realized the kids had grown, the bills were paid, the career was replaced with less demanding part time work and retirement was just around the corner. Hmmmmm what to do in retirement, how to prepare for retirement?? I know, I’ll go back to class, brush up on my painting and take it up again as a hobby. So I took classes, lots of classes, I retired from work last year, gave myself a few months to chill out and enjoy being retired and then decided, I’m going to paint full time for a whole year. And that’s what I’m working on now, completing my full time painting year. 

Question; How does my work differ from others?

I don’t know how to answer this, In many ways my work doesn’t differ very much from the work from other local artists. I paint mostly in acrylic on canvas and my subject matter is a mixture; I do portraits, figurative work, landscapes, seascapes and more recently, I’ve attempted a couple of abstracts. I think my work is recognizable because it’s bold (nothing subtle here), usually bright and quite dramatic. I think I’m probably best at portraits but I do enjoy the other work.

Question; Why do I write/create what I do?

I think I’ve already answered that in question one but the short answer is; ‘because it’s what I do’. You may as well ask why do cows chew grass or why do birds sing, the answer is simply because that’s what they do. Ditto, I paint because it’s what I do.

Question; How does my writing/creative process work?

That’s a tricky one, sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes I can’t paint, or even want to paint for weeks at a time, which is difficult when you have set yourself the task of painting full time for a whole year. Mostly  it works in the same way as any other job,  you plan, set deadlines, make notes about projects, decide what you are doing and then allocate time in which to work. Specifically; I take photos, edit, crop then print the photos and work from them. The photos can be people or places; my grandchildren have been some of my favourite subjects this year and usually I use more than one photo per painting. 

This year the actual planning has revolved around different exhibitions and art societies. My year as a full time painter started about this time last year with something called the Meffin Winter Exhibition. Which is a ( winter) exhibition held in a local museum where professional and amateur artists from all over Scotland are invited to submit their work. It’s a big exhibition and, because of the number of entries and limited space, it’s quite hard to get work accepted and hung. About this time last  year I submitted two paintings to the Meffin, both of which were rejected but that was the start of my year.  Now the whole thing has come full circle and I’m about to submit my two paintings for this year. Once submission for the Meffin is over, my painting year is finished.

My year as a painter

These are the two paintings I submitted to the Meffin last year, Nov 2013; they are called 'Leo Cortana actor from Marseille' and 'Red Balloons and Umbrellas'. Neither of them were accepted but maybe I'll have better luck with this years entries.

At the start of 2014 a local framing studio offered to display my work in their window. It was great seeing my work on display in the high street. Nothing sold but there was quite a bit of interest and lots of people saw them, The feedback I received was all good.

In April I submitted fabric bunting for an exhibition in Carnoustie library to celebrate the 800^th anniversary of West Haven, a tiny fishing hamlet on the west shore Carnoustie.

In May here was a mini exhibition in the premises of the Carnoustie Art Society.

 

In July it was my turn to do the window display for the Carnoustie Art society. I chose lavender as my theme.

August was a busy month. At the start of Aug there were more 800 anniversary celebrations for West Haven, this time on the beach and inside big marquees.  

The highlight of my painting year has to be the Auchmithie Arts festival. Auchmithis is a tiny village on the top of cliffs overlooking the North Sea. Every two years they open the village up to Scottish artists. Many artists live there and open their homes to the public but the villagers who don’t paint, offer exhibition space to non resident artists like me. I literally took over this house for a weekend and had all my paintings displayed in my hosts  living room.

 
 The first two weeks of September was the Arbroath Arts Society exhibition held in Arbroath Library.These are the paintings exhibited in Arbroath. 

I am now about to send these paintings off to the Carnoustie Art Society exhibition held over the first two weeks of November in the Carnoustie library. 

And finally, these two paintings need a little more work before being submitted to the Meffin for inclusion in  the 2014 Meffin Winter Exhibition.These are called 'Little Boats', and 'Waiting for the Boats'.

And that will conclude my year as a full time painter. Not that I’m giving up painting of course but next year I hope to spend less time painting and more time traveling. 

Yep…………I hope 2015 will be my year of travel 
All of my paintings can be seen on my Facebook page 
 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Loretta-Dean-Paintings-Portraits-and-Pastels/237665886357880