HARASSED BUT HAPPY

I suppose we shall be ready in time for Open Studios.  I am feeling harassed but happy!

I have even managed a hair cut since I painted this little oil sketch!

I am excited about the paintings I have done this summer and I look forward to showing them to you if you come to see me at 

Venue 142 during SAW Open Studios 17 September - 2 October 

we are open every day 11 am - 6 pm and details are in the SAW guide

Here are three little paintings, all four are 20 x 20 cm - there are lots of bigger ones

QUIET NIGHTS?

In the roof of our house here in Belgium is a lovely attic room which is the guest bedroom and the place where all the grandchildren camp out when they come to stay.

It has two small windows, high in the gable, facing the street, through which the street lights bathe the room in an orange glow and the children cant get to sleep.. Some times their mother drapes cloth over the opening but I decided yesterday to make some shutter panels and paint them with a dark sky and the moon. I used corrugated cardboard (see earlier postings!) and painted a view of the street in oil paint.

Here they are before I fix them. .

SAW OPEN STUDIOS

After a lot of humming and hawing I finally put in my entry forms for this year's Somerset Art Works Open Studios. I am so glad I did.  I wondered about it for a long time. It is a lot of work and it is hard to get people to Bridgwater, not quite Cream Tea territory! And being, as I so often am, the only venue in town makes it harder.

But I am doing it!!  I should say "I am the ONLY venue in town!"  So, come mid September, come and see my pictures.  If you are lucky you might get a cup of tea.

I hope you like this painting. It is small, 20 x 20 cm,   in oil and is one of a series called Flemish Fruit and Veg.  I spend a lot of time with Lutje, my missus,  in Belgium so they really are Flemish , like her.This one is "Pear on a terracotta dish"

I now have to do lots more painting and drawing.!

If you are interested Open Studios why not  follow this link
 http://somersetartworks.org.uk/what-we-do/art-weeks/openstudios/

PACKING AND SORTING

Only two working days before I have to return to UK and I am sorting out some of the work I have done this summer,, so that I can make a big parcel and post it back ready for SAW and open studios . It seems really good value via Belgian post. But it does not work the other way and Royal mail!!

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I have just had the normal trauma with brown packing tape. You know how you can't find the end and, when you think you have, it tears and comes off in little icky strips and is just a nuisance?  I realised, just now, that it dates from my last packing session here and that was two summers ago. It is time for a new roll.  So until this afternoon the parcel is sitting looking like this. (two acrylic abstracts and three oil still life)

 I have done a lot of drawings and paintings of fruit and veg which will go in my suitcase. Here are a few

 These, above and below, are in oil on panels 20 x 20 cm 

these are watercolour and pencil, watercolour, and mixed media

I have also done many drawings and the odd painting (very odd!) of myself. I have never before  been into self portraits and it is worrying. I look a bit scary? Is the world ready for this. maybe i shall be braver tomorrow!

I am really looking forward to Art week, so much to do yet.
 Bridgwater potter Lesley Cooper is sharing with me which will be great.  Come and see us!