I’ve been exhibiting at the large Dame Catherine Harpur School exhibition at Ticknall in South Derbyshire for 12 years now, and love it for the standard of work, the amazing choice and diversity of the artwork there, and of course always seeing artist friends during it, and having a happy relaxed day out. The fact that the sun shone there this year was a bonus too! I made sure I went early and gave myself a good three hours to look at the artwork, knowing that I would be bumping into various people I know as I went around, and having chats here and there. What I love about that show is that amateurs and professionals can enter, and its built up so that they hang around a thousand pictures (and that’s a LOT of artwork) by more than a hundred artists and have hundreds of people through the doors. As an artist, I am always interested to see what other people have done, and more importantly what sells. And sometimes it’s not what you’d think. Some of the red dots were on pictures that I knew weren’t technically very competent, and yet there might have been a fabulous painting next to it that was far better painted and more colourful and it didn’t sell. But that’s art, and I know that just because a picture didn’t sell, doesn’t mean its a bad painting, only that the right buyer with the right money wasn’t there to see it that day. And there were some stunning pictures there, one large tiger portrait very similar to my “Spitting mad” (shown here) painting caught my eye, as did a lovely oil painting of an old bewhiskered man’s face. Those were my two favourites…….
But what was also nice was hearing my name being spoken whilst I was standing about six feet away from where my artwork was hanging, and going over with a smile to talk to the woman who runs the show who introduced me to the couple in question who had recognised my artwork from their village parish magazine covers and having a lovely chat with them about a picture they want doing of their dogs, which I am more than happy to do for them.
I always say that everyone has a painting inside of them that they want doing, and its my job to paint it for them!