PORTRAIT COLLECTION. Changing Faces.
I had completed two paintings for my new Portrait Collection. I AM NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM and MARTIN DOREY. Twelve more to go. One evening I watched the programme Beauty and the Beast. It featured two women. One obsessed with her own beauty, who proudly told the...
How to create a Portrait Collection.
Putting together a portrait collection was proving to be quite difficult. How many paintings? Who do I choose to paint? Why would I want to do this? What title could l use? What would be different about it? How long would it take me? Where would I show the...
How to become a Cruise Ship Speaker
Can you speak with knowledge, confidence and enthusiasm? Can you put together at least six different talks about your chosen subject? Are you friendly and like people. Why not consider working as a Speaker on a Cruise ship. I applied to the P & R Agency Ltd...
WORDSWORTH – ‘THE IDIOT BOY’.
Apart from the line " I wandered lonely as a l cloud" written by Wordsworth, there was little else I knew about him. The Wordsworth Museum holds 90% of WW's literary manuscripts. I was invited to the Museum and given a commission to create a piece of tactile work...
TOUCHING ISOLATION
I made a second copy of ISOLATION because I wanted it to be tactile. I adapted the images lightly, built it up with sand and plaster so the viewer could feel the rough with the smooth, just as life is. When people see works of art, they either like or dislike it,...
ISOLATION IN LONDON.
I have painted two paintings both called ISOLATION. This blog is about the first one which is a flat painting as opposed to my normal tactile works. A few years ago, on a dark drizzly evening in London, I walked past a church, it was lit up and the door slightly...
EAST DEVON CREMATORIUM commission.
The year is 2010 and the story continues. I had been painting for just over six years and am work in the studio most every day during the winter months and try to not work for a few months in the summer months and go to my allotment which is my retreat. I am...
SPEAKER ON FRED OLSON CRUISE SHIPS
Prior to my trip to the Art Beyond Sight Conference in New York, a friend who enjoys Cruise Holiday asked if I had ever considered giving talks on the Ships. She said there are a variety of Speakers and felt I could talk about my life changes and work. I had given...
NEW YORK CONFERENCE and Art Beyond Sight
The story continues. In 2008 I attended and showed my work at the Tactile Graphics Conference hosted by RNIB Centre for Accessible Information. Whilst there I learned about the amazing and impressive American Organisation Art Education for the Blind, and its...
You have painted my holiday, I was happy then.
MY APOLOGIES - THIS BLOG SHOULD BE BEFORE THE CREMATORIUM COMMISSION. The opening party of the Antwerp Art Festival was great fun and the following three days were then open to the public. I got some really good reactions to the tactile paintings and it was good to...
COMMISSION FOR BRAINTREE CREMATORIUM
Many years ago I worked in the office at Portchester Crematorium. A few years later, one of my colleagues went on to build Crematorias and in 2008 he commissioned me to make a piece of art for the new build Three Counties Crematorium in Braintree, Essex. The work...
Belgium not Bognor
I had worked on some great commissions. Over the next year or so I showed work at the County Hall In London, The Helen Keller awards in Glasgow, Chichester Tactile Exhibition, Llandudno and Belgium. The opportunity to show out of the country sounded exciting,...
Mary Rose £5 coin commission
I am going to jump forward a few years from 2007 to 2011 because the following is associated with the Mary Rose commission and it seems a natural follow on. I received a letter from the Westminster Coin Company. It read, " Your tactile copy of the 16th century...
No Harry Redknapp and no official opening.
I arrived at the Mary Rose Museum with my painting and was taken into the Board room. The painting was unwrapped and handed to Charlie the Blind Volunteer. At that stage no-one else could see the picture. He felt his way around the painting and then told all the...
Blind volunteer reads Mary Rose painting.
It took me four months to build up the plaster work on the tactile painting of the Mary Rose ship, often using the tiniest brushes normally used to paint miniatures. Prior to painting, the white plaster relief work of the ship was almost ghostly. I must admit I...