Found a frame!

After quite literally an accumulative 8 hours of online frame searching, I have found the perfect frame for the Threadneedle pink shoes. Thanks to Friargate Frames (an ebay store) I am awaiting delivery of this:
The frame is wood with plaster moulding, ivory colour and totally perfect.

Other (non)news is that I am STILL waiting to hear if the blue shoes got into the RA. No letter. Despite friends in the same village getting theirs. I can't remember being so agitated at the no-show of the postman since valentines day 1980.!!!

Thinking landscape after all.

I can't help wishing I'd painted these as if they were abandoned on a sandy beach. Well, its what I imagine anyway. Perhaps the background is best left neutral so viewers can make their own narrative...thanks for the suggestions all. :-)
Decision now is....what frame???? This work is destined for the Threadneedle Exhibition/Competition in London next month...so I need to decide soon.

Change your shoes, change your life IV

Been rummaging in the back of my wardrobe today. Looking for some shoes to paint as part of my 'Change' series. These, believe it or not, were (in the eighties) very expensive and now very battered silk Cartier's. Luckily the sun was out so loads of good lighting for the photos. It has (however) taken the best part of 2 hours to upload said photos after having to reinstall drivers for the camera. Why does a 30 minute job always take an afternoon??
Who knows.
Anyway. I'm off into the studio now to see what I can come up with. I'll update later.....

.....2 hours later here we are.

I do enjoy using this canvas paper. The grain is similar to very fine canvas but you can tape it to a board and you're ready to go. Its Crimson & Blake and rare as hens teeth. I got my pad from a well known online auction site, since none of my usual artist suppliers stock it. I haven't signed this one yet. I cannot decide whether it looks best portrait or landscape. Any suggestion?

Still life studio

I have never tried a still life before. Something about arranging vegetables into an exact arrangement seems to me rather pointless as a composition. Why not just take a photo? Well that was before I started dabbling in oil and thought the exercise would be worthwhile. Rather than stage it, I did just take a snap shot of my studio table instead, and painted this afternoon. The portrait in the background is me (in oil), painted by Ron Freeborn last year during an Arts group meeting. I have to hold my hand up in shame to the abandoned paintbrushes in jam jars. In my defence, I am in the middle of finishing a shoe painting and thought it a waste of white spirit to clean them in between 'goes'. The two abandoned wine glasses in the foreground are from the other eve when I had some company in the studio. I have since washed them up...honest :-)

Still some finishing to do, but I have enjoyed the process.

Spring Exhibition May 2 - May 17

The Poppyfield (acrylic & gold leaf)

Change your shoes...change your life II (oil)

Primavera (oil)

The Eynsham Arts Group are having an Artweeks exhibition and these are the paintings I am showing. You can view a lot more of the groups work here or even better, why not come along and view the real thing. There will always be one of the artists around and there are cards and prints etc for sale also.