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Talk to the face

Talk to the face

Its been a really busy week, too busy to blog, but now I can catch up with my communications…Demure (2)

Although it was *communications* that has taken up the majority of my work for the last few days, culminating in last night when I did my talk for the lovely WI ladies of Long Whatton in rural Leicestershire. They had booked me some months ago to talk about being an erotic artist, and I know that on the whole women tend to go quiet when I talk about it, and men tend to light up, so I wasn’t quite sure what the reaction would be. Having said that, they had booked me, wanted me to talk about my career as the erotic artist, and we had agreed my fee, so all in all, I presumed it would go ok!

The instructions were for me to talk for between one and one and a half hours. And that is actually a long time, to talk solidly about one thing, and make it interesting, and not to run out of steam half way through. But then, when I looked at the last talk I did for the WI, a few years ago, it made sense to use that one as my basis but just slot in the new stuff I’ve done since then. And then it became a whole lot easier. I decided to split it up in a logical manner, to have a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning to say who I was, and say that I’d been an artist all my life, had my first commission at 13, had exhibited all over the East Midlands, and in Hertfordshire and London, had sold my artwork to buyers in the UK, USA and Canada. And then to go on to what sort of mediums I paint in, and what subjects I paint. And at the end to sum up saying that I hope that I am an inspiration, that I love it when someone is brought to tears by a painting I’ve done of them, and that the thing I think is most important is communication, and depicting it in my art.

Goddesses of the divine feminineSo, that was my beginning, and end. Now the bit in the middle….

Ok, what’s important….. oh yes…… how I interpret erotic art….how I got into doing erotic art….. how people get into modelling for artists…. what sort of pictures they want doing….. how colour makes a difference…. how people choose pictures at an exhibition…. what sort of people have commisioned pictures from me…. the important highlights of paintings I’ve done so far…. how really complicated some of my artwork is………….. the conversations I have with my friends about erotic art….. what people say when they hear I am an erotic artist….. the impact my website … and blog have had on people….. that I’ve had my artwork published in erotic books…… how unusual I am as a woman doing erotic art…. how I differ from a man doing erotic art….how erotic art differs from life drawing…. how painting goddesses has inspired me to paint all women in the same way…..how people view my job…. what difference music makes to me when I draw… how my job involves naked people… how I’ve changed some peoples lives for the better from the experience of being drawn by me…. how doing the Fantasy Fanny paintings has had a wonderfully therapeutic effect…. making posing for erotic art a positive experience….   how innocent eyes only seen innocence in my artwork… how erotic landscapes work as a concept and the variations in ways of doing them.. my favourite erotic picture that always gets a smile…. and oh yes… why someone once thought I was a neurotic artist….           Tree of life

I practiced my talk at home, talking outloud to the kitchen clock, so that I could time how long it took and knew it was around an hour and ten minutes. I knew I wouldn’t remember all of it verbatum, but I printed out my “Mind map” notes so that I knew what was coming up next in the subject matter. And I knew which of my many pictures I was taking with me to illustrate the talk, and the order that they would appear. Ok. All sorted!

My friend Stuart Haywood who is well practiced in doing  lots of talks about many subjects told me last week that it doesn’t matter how many times you do a talk, the nerves and concerns don’t get any better. So I thought that the best possible thing I could do would be to plan it as much as I could, and then just see how it went on the night.

My man told me ten minutes before I left the house that the most important thing was……. “Remember to enjoy it!” and I went with that positive and most helpful thought in my head.

And arrived with it in my head too. I was greeted my the woman who had booked me, and set my stuff up as the other women arrived, and was able to observe them as they started the business aspect of their meeting, and then, it was over to me. I asked as I started what time they wanted me to finish and was told that 9.15 would be great, if I could. I noticed that it was 7.45 and started with a smile and a “Hello, I’m Jackie Adshead and I’ve been an artist all my life…” and just kept talking, and talking, and it was about half an hour after that that I thought to myself “Er, what time am I supposed to stop talking?” but kept on, until I came to the natural ending of the talk, looked at the clock opposite me, and found to my amazement, that the time said “9.15”. Phew. Exactly on time. And I hadn’t planned it, I had just said all I wanted to say, in the order I wanted to, skipped over a few bits in one sentence instead of four, added in extra bits as and when tTickled pink (2)hey needed clarifying, and came to the end. And was delighted to hear a “That was interesting” comment from one of the women, and was gratified to note that I’d had nodding heads, interested faces looking at me, and they had kept quiet. You know its gone ok when an audience keeps quiet. Its when they start chatting you know that they’re not engaged, or worse, are bored!

Thankyou, yes, I will have a cup of tea. And two of the women wandered over to tell me their educational connections with art as arty types tend to do.

I left feeling that I’ve achieved all I wanted to, not feeling elated, or deflated. But certainly ready for a nice glass of chilled white wine when I got home!

And this morning, I had two phone calls in quick succession, one from Stuart, and one from my man, to see how I’ve got on. Awww.. how lovely of both of them, to ask and want to know. And I knew that in my voice I was happy at my achievement, and that it certainly seemed a good success 🙂

I've been an artist all of my life, and my paintings now hang on walls in Europe, USA and Canada. I'm working on getting them on the other continents! My wide range of artwork has been exhibited nearer to home in the East Midlands, with the Guild of Erotic Artists at Beaumont Hall Studios in Hertfordshire, and at "Erotica", Olympia, London. I have also been featured alongside my work in the Guild of Erotic Artists book (volume 2). I love to create dramatic interest in my pictures, whether it’s to paint an unusual landscape, or just to utilise dramatic lighting in my figure drawings or strong colour in my animal portraits. Delighting in the spontaneous tendencies of watercolour adds an interesting and distinctive look to my paintings, some of which are purposefully ambiguous, enabling the viewer to use their own interpretation of my artwork. I also love to hide images, and humour within my paintings, whether it’s a secret message, or an erotic couple hidden within a landscape, or even an erotic landscape where the couple are camouflaged as the features of the land itself. I am equally happy painting in oils, acrylics or watercolours and love to draw with pencil or ink. I have also developed the very effective method of drawing using white pencil on black card which creates dramatic pictures by just picking out where the light catches the body and leaving the rest of the image to the imagination, in darkness. I can also utilise many different styles, whether it is realistic, abstract, surrealistic, erotic, fantasy or camouflage art where something is hidden within the painting. I'm just passionate about my art, whatever I paint! But, it doesn't matter how many landscapes or pet portraits I paint, its always the erotic stuff that people are interested in! I started blogging to share some of the strange conversations I have with the people I meet. But its evolved into far more than that now.

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