One complete, another begins.

Barn Owl Portrait - size approx 14x11"
NOW SOLD

After a long 4-day weekend of demonstrating at a show, here we have the completed Barn Owl portrait.  I wanted to go for something quite different with this barn owl, concentrating on the face and wing.  Some people may say they want to see the talons or the entire owl, but i've been there, done that - I wanted to get closer to the detail with this one.

This barn owl is now going to be locked away as I need to save it for an exhibition in July at Talents Gallery in Malton.

Harrogate Flower Show

Harrogate Flower Show set up

There hasn't been much progression on the barn owl of late.  I have been busy getting ready for the Harrogate Flower Show which ran from last Thursday through to Sunday.

The flower show is usually the start of the show season, so it's always a relief to get there and know that the quiet months are over.

The show was a bit of a strange one this year.  Usually, Saturdays and Sundays are the best 2 days, for me at least, with a relatively quiet Thursday and Friday (lots of coach trips - they don't tend to buy much more than greeting cards from me).  This year, Thursday and Friday were by far the better two days.  Saturday was very busy, but not in terms of sales.

Any of you out there that regularly attend shows know that exhibitors spend a lot of time questioning why a show, or a particular day, is good or bad.  We seem to need reasons for success or failure, probably so we can reproduce the successes and avoid the failures in the future.  The general consensus amongst exhibitors was that it was the weather (always a reason for something at a show).  The marquee, which is massive and holds hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of visitors, was so hot on Saturday that people seemed to be looping around and heading for the door as quickly as they could, only stopping at the ice-cream stand.  Of course, had it been raining, we would have blamed the rain for the low sales!

Of course, who cares which days work and which don't, as long as the overall outcome is one of success, and it was!

Now back to restocking for Easter!

Oscar complete

I actually finished Oscar a few days ago now, but didn't want to post it until the recipient had collected the drawing. With that done, here he is! The blue belton markings make this a nice dog to work on in graphite.

Size approx 11.5x15.5"

Onwards with Oscar

Here's another couple of days work on Oscar. The face is pretty much sorted, just need to finish off the ears before moving onto the curly neck and chest hair.

I'm finding this a fun one to draw - the markings and colouring of an English Setter lend themselves quite nicely to the humble pencil.

English Setter

Here we are with the weekend's work. This is Oscar, a blue belton English Setter.

I am 3 days into this, but having had a relatively quiet weekend demonstrating at Hawes, I got quite a bit more than I would usually expect. That may be good for drawing progress, but isn't great for sales - as always, we seem to be at the mercy of the weather, and after the week we just had, I can't blame people for not venturing out. There's always the next show though!!

Priory Exhibition a Great Success

As mentioned here quite a few times over the last few weeks, last weekend was the Priory Arts Exhibition, the first exhibition to be held at this new venue.

I must admit, I wasn't expecting too much in the run up to the event. I had seen the venue beforehand, so I knew that would be great, and I could tell it was being very well organised, but The Priory Barn at Syningthwaite near Wetherby is in a location that has very little passing traffic. As it turned out, it was very well advertised, and we had an excellent number of visitors over the weekend.

The preview evening on the Friday was packed to the rafters (or to the massive exposed beams) with people happy to spend and not simply there for free champagne and canapés. There was a nice mix of work from the 5 artists, and all 5 had a great weekend.

The Priory makes a great exhibition venue, and would be a great place for a wedding (as it is usually used for).

Emma Stothard's amazing life size bull made from willow greeting visitors in the entrance.

My section was already looking 'thin' by Sunday morning.

Nikky Corker's stunning work.

For anyone interested in the location and facilities at the priory, their URL is http://www.priorycottages.co.uk/

Art Exhibition

ART IN THE PRIORY EXHIBITION

Readers of this blog (or viewers - there isn't usually too much to read!) will have noticed that i've been frantically drawing for the last few weeks preparing for a new exhibition. This Saturday and Sunday, I will be exhibiting work at a new Priory Barn at Syningthwaite near Wetherby.

There will be work from 4 other Yorkshire Artists Nikky Corker, Vivienne Rawnsley, Emma Stothard and Sandie Turner.

The exhibition is open from 10am until 4pm both days, so if you're in the area, drop in.

Golden Eagle Study

Golden Eagle Study

Image size 16.5"x11.5"

All originals done! Time to get them printed and mounted!

Herdwick Study

Herdwick Tup

Image size 15.5"x11.5"

The penultimate drawing before next week's exhibition. I now have 3 days to start and complete a Golden Eagle study!!

Speed under pressure!

Barn Owl at Rest

Image size approx 16x12"

It's amazing what a little pressure can do to my drawing speed. With only 9 days until my first exhibition of the year, this is the only original I currently have (the last Hare drawing sold before it was finished). I'm hoping to get at least another 2 originals ready for the exhibition, so there'll be no respite yet!

Hare - On the Lookout

'On The Lookout'

Size approx 15.5x12"

Finally got around to finishing this Hare drawing having started it almost 2 months ago (which is a long time for me). I have an exhibition in 2 weeks, which this drawing isn't for, so I need to get straight back to the drawing board!

Couple more dogs added.

I obviously haven't updated the blog for quite some time now. This is partly due to not having any new work to show you, and partly due to 17 days of shows in the run up to Christmas leaving me with about as much time on my hands as Santa on Xmas Eve.

Anyway, with shows (and Christmas) over with for a short while, I can get back to drawing - I need to as I have no original drawings left and an exhibition in less than a month's time!!

The shows were slightly affected by the weather, with the first week being very, very quiet when compared with last year - fortunately, it picked up from there. The 17 days of shows have been extended to 25 days for next Christmas, so that'll be fun!!

Here are a couple of drawings completed back in November which will be added to the dog collection. It is actually the same Schnauzer, Charlie, drawn from two different profiles. The owner should have received the original for Xmas yesterday, so I hope they like them.

Swaledale Profile Complete

'Swaledale Profile'

Size approx 14x12"

I said in my last post that i'd be working on the Swaledale over 3 days at the Harrogate Flower Show. The show turned out to be way too busy and successful for me to get much drawing done, so it was completed at this weekend's Hawes fair.

I think I need a break from sheep for a short while now, so it's either onto a dog commission or time to revisit the Hares! Time will tell which...

Westie complete

After a very busy and very successful 7 days of shows, plus the ending of a 5-week exhibition, I have finally got this Westie drawing complete.

Time to get ready for the next set of shows!

Printer issues

I guess I can't really complain, having owned my Epson R2400 for about 5 years now, but it recently began spewing ink out of the front every time I changed a cartridge or it went through a cleaning cycle. It was still producing excellent prints, so I was reluctant to spend £600+ on replacing it.

I contacted Epson to see what they could do - they could collect it and service it for £200, but that seemed like a lot of money to spend on a 5-year old printer. After a bit of online searching, I decided that it must be the waste ink tank that was full. Rather than spending £600, or £200, I ordered a waste tank kit for a tenner that essentially bypasses the internal waste tank.

The printer is working fine again, but the really worrying thing now is, since the waste tank is now outside the printer and visible, I can actually see how much ink is wasted every time I have to change a cartridge! For what is said to be the most expensive liquid on the planet (mine works out to around £1 per ml), that's a lot of waste!

Do you think I can bottle it and sell it back to Epson?

Commission completed

As expected, I didn't have chance to scan any further stages of this during the last 5 days of shows, so here we are at the finished article.

It's been a very successful 5 days, beginning with Thornton Le Dale Show on Wednesday, which was much busier than I was expecting, then 4 days at Hawes, which gave me chance to get this dog finished.

So that's it for commissions for this year (having done 2). I now need to get my print stocks back up for the next set of shows and to replenish the Harlow Carr Exhibition that is still going on.

"Tawny Owl"

Image size approx 14"x11"

A bit of finishing off this morning after a very quite 2 days working on this at a fair over the weekend, and the Tawny Owl is finished. This one will be off to the Harlow Carr Exhibition on Sunday.

Barn Owl number 3 complete

"Barn Owl II"

Size approx 10.5" x 14"

Finally got this one complete today. starting another drawing in the middle of working on this one has made it feel like this drawing has taken an age to get complete, but we're there now.

This will be mounted and framed ready for the RHS Harlow Carr Summer Exhibition at the end of the month. Just a couple more to get done before then!

Little Owl Completed

'Little Owl'

Size approx 11.5"x15"

How good does a marquee need to be?

As mentioned in my last post, I was at the North Yorkshire County Show this weekend, but it didn't quite go to plan. Although, in the end, the day was a very sunny success, it did cost me my marquee!

I went to set up the marquee the day before the show and it wasn't particularly windy. It had started to rain, but that is always a guarantee when i'm putting up a marquee. However nice a day it is, the Weather Gods spot my marquee and decide it must pour! Just as I had opened up the marquee but not got it fully pegged down yet, suddenly a gale started, pulled out half the pegs and flipped the marquee straight over, buckling it in a number of places. With the help of some other traders, I managed to get it upright and standing with a lot of Duck tape and steel poles so it stood for the duration of the show (as you can see from the image), but i'm not sure it will live to trade another day!

I've had cheap pop-up gazebos that have blown to bits within minutes of going up, but this was a heavy duty pop-up marquee... I guess not heavy duty enough! Luckily, the rest of my outdoor shows this year are within other organisers' marquees, so I don't have to do anything about it until next year.

A note to anyone out there that is considering their own marquee for events like this, the good ones aren't good enough. You really do need to go for the full commercial grade marquees.