I have just recieved an invitation from the Association of Fine Arts Belgrade-Serbia & Montenegro to an International Art festival in Montenegro. It is in mid June this year however and I am not sure I will be able to go. I need to check my diary dates, it is shortly after my weeks mayfly fishing over in the west. If I can't make it this year, hopefully I may be able to postpone until next year as I would love to go to Montenegro, situated on the Adriatic coast, with a warm meditereanean climate... There are a number of my artist friends and aquaintances among the twenty invited artists. The festival is just down the coast from other friends too.

Hopefully I may be able to adjust my schedule to fit it in. I know I have to cancel a major fishing competition, and another is the day before I need to go, but I may be able to fish that one.

I'm going to go now and start checking flights, diaries and everything else....

An Artist's work is never done...

I have not posted in a while, I have been very busy. I have sent the ex-libris lino prints off to Belgrade for the Biennale. I just sent these two.

One a basic lighthouse (the subject for the Biennale) in an art deco style.

The second is based on the Boyne valley and the salmon of knowledge, the story as explained here .

It includes an ogham stone (early celtic script) enscribed with 'libris' in the foreground, the salmon of knowledge, Newgrange passage tomb, and clouds in the style of Celtic pre christian stonework (spirals). Newgrange is a lighthouse in reverse, instead of lighting up the sky to direct ships, the solstice sunrise lights up the back of the tomb down the passage through a small window above the door. In effect lighting up the house of the dead.

I have been busy doing routine organisation of upcoming exhibition opportunities etc. also, plus I have had two angling competitions recently. They take up time too.

I hope to get some more actual painting done shortly, but I won't hold my breath, I have a lot of things happening at the moment all combining to make it difficult to get settled into a painting frame of mind. I have to ship another painting today. It takes a few hours to pack and post a painting, all of which takes time out from the studio. I have already spent two hours photographing work to send two images off to a gallery, it takes time to ensure accurate colours and shading, plus good sharp focus with no distortion of the painting.

At least the sun is shining in my windows, cheering up my day, but I have to sign off now, to update my fishing blog, and then back to work.

I am back at work this week

I had a few days off last week fishing etc. The work is going well. I am working on a few landscapes, one portrait and large seascape. The work is varied to say the least, but none of them are urgent so I can work on whichever I feel like doing at the time.
The warm weather last week was great for doing plien air work, and I went fishing. This week the temperature has dropped down to between below freezing and 6 degrees centigrade. At least the studio is heated....I have a new PC set up in there now too. The Internet connection is not great though, I may need to run a new line in.
I still tend to do most of my web work in the evenings though, but the 'net connection is invaluable for sending photos of work in progress, it means I can photograph the painting, download to the PC and email it all at once. It makes much more sense than running back and forth to a computer in the house.
I don't want to get into the habit of spending time on the PC in the studio though, it will interfere with the painting.