Why I've not been around much recently.

Why I’ve not been around much recently.


 I’ve been away from the computer quite a bit recently, and this, is the reason why. I decided to paint two paintings for entry into this years Meffan winter exhibition, held in the Meffin gallery in the next town and open to all artists who live in Scotland. Competition is high and hanging space is limited which means only about 25% of what is submitted is actually accepted into the exhibition.
So………..after many a long hour at the kitchen table, these are my two entries. Both paintings are now finished and I took them to the framers yesterday. This gives me plenty of time to get them to the gallery on submission day. Submission days are Friday 15th and Saturday 16th November. Then I have to wait until the opening night of the exhibition to find out if they have been accepted and hung. Even if they are not accepted I get an invite to the opening night and private viewing on Friday 29th November. I'm looking forward to that, its one of those wine and nibbles occasions where you get to meet all the other local artists who have submitted paintings. I'm posting a picture of me holding the finished paintings to give some idea of size.
Anyhow, these are the finished paintings; the portrait will just be titled Leo Cortana, Actor from Marseille, the other one doesn't have a title yet I'm still thinking about it. I’ve been planning this little painting for a while now.

It started with a tiny magazine (national geographic) photo of two little girls in old fashioned plastic rain coats, then I found a picture, an advert actually, of another little girl looking at the camera and holding an umbrella. Originally she was looking to the left and I had to reverse it. Then my granddaughter saw what I was doing and asked my to paint her in where the girl in the foreground was, so, we then had a bit of a photo shoot of granddaughter in the living room playing with my umbrella. And then………she decided she liked the  coat in the original picture so I had to paint, granddaughters face, my umbrella and the coat from the magazine. The red balloons were an afterthought but one I considered putting balloons in I knew it was the right thing to do. Like I said, this one doesn’t have a name yet, Any suggestions??

A round up of this years paintings so far.

A round up of my recent paintings