More success with Ex Libris prints.

The month has almost gone. Eoin is back from his tour of foreign parts (US, Asia, Australia, New Zealand) on Friday. I have spent the last week organising the house, with Christine wanting everything fresh and clean for the homecoming. The upshot is I have still not started work...
I have a Portugeese collector of Ex-Libris wanting some prints before July. The collector wants to include some images and my bio in a book he is publishing on Contemporary Ex Libris artists. It will be a limited edition hardback (200 copies) with two for each of the two dozen artists involved, so there is no payment for this, mind you, usually when you are contacted about inclusion in books on contemporary art they are expecting you to pay for the privelege.

I am looking forward to getting stuck into some work in the studio at the moment, but I just can't find the time. I am busy with everything else going on, and I've a couple of big Angling competitions coming up next month including a fish-off (24 anglers) for four places on next years International team, and the provincial championship (which is a qualifier for the competition to provide another 10 places on the team). In the meantime I will be having a studio sale sometime in June/July as a fund-raiser towards the costs of this years International Competition in England in September. I need to create some space in my studio anyway, and I have a lot of older work in my studio that needs a new home. So if anyone is interested in something from my website http://www.artbygreglong.com , I am open to offers on much of what is on display there as many of these will be included. It will mean I have to update my website too but it is the push I need to do that! I've been threatening to do it for over 12 months!!

I give up!!! I don't think I'll get any work done at all this month.... painting that is. I've been busy doing other things all week again, and I have at least a couple of days working on other things this week too.

Life can get in the way of painting even when you are a "full-time" artist. At this rate I'll be in Starry Night in New Mexico before I start a new series of paintings.. and that is 12 months away!! I am going to have to just lock myself away in my studio for a week. I may get the work flowing that way....

Spring has arrived, with it's distractions.

Another week gone in a flash! I haven't been particularly productive, After a good start, the neglected garden and other little jobs that need doing got in the way of painting. I have a few canvases stretched and ready to go though. Hopefully next week will be more productive than this last one.

The big problem with spring is the grass starts growing and needs mowing... another job for the forseeable future.

I was determined to start some new work this week, but the fine weather is making it difficult for a procrastinator! I spent this afternoon sitting beside the pond in the sunshine, tying a few buzzer nymphs for fishing. Killing two birds with one stone as it were. It is nice to have warm sunshine again, it was reminiscent of the Cote D'Azur. It helps the varnish to dry on the buzzers too, as they need about eight thin coats of varnish to make them heavy and durable enough to be effective.

So as you can gather painting lost out to a combination of sunbathing and fly-tying this afternoon, with Kris Kristofferson in the background as a counterpoint to the sound of running water falling into the pond, where the fish are happily feeding upon any of the tadpoles that are daft enough to leave the center of the weed-beds. Last years fry are quite big now too, big enough to feed quite happily on the unfortunate tadpoles...

I'm back from the South of France. In truth all plans went out the window when we got there. With bright blue skies and temperatures in the low to mid twenties we spent most of the time either walking or sunning ourselves at the beachside cafes. Wine, espressos and warm sunshine with the gentle music of the sea to accompany them. We did visit Cannes, and Menton but the rest of the time we spent doing much of nothing and practicing my pigeon french with waiters. It is a sad fact that their english is usually far better than my french... but I do try!

I did do some painting, here I am with my morning coffee on the apartment patio painting the tree in front of me.... also photographed by Christine...

Yesterday I went into the studio and finally did a clearout. I then got stuck in and painted for a few hours, the sketching I did while away got the juices flowing. Either that or the sunshine recharged the batteries.

Either way I am raring to go and get to work.

see ya!

I'm on my travels again....

I am busy for the next couple of weeks, I need to send in a completed application for funding by March 31st. This doesn't sound too bad, but I'm away in the south of France for a week! I am applying for funding towards my trip to Starry Night Retreat in New Mexico next April.

I am organising a studio sale of older works in June or July, this will be held in a local gallery over one weekend. It will allow me to reduce the number of older works in the studio, and it will allow some of my art collectors to obtain works with an earlier slant. My work has evolved over the last decade. It became quite dark for a while, and these works in particular are not likely to be seen again. I have a few very realistic still lifes too which are unlikely to be repeated as I now use my still life studies for more expressionist work.

There are one or two very large works I will have on sale also, I tend to work smaller now since moving to my current studio. I am going to use this studio sale to fund my International Competition duties in September, and hopefully also go a long way to funding my New Mexico trip too. When I return from the French Riviera I will have to go into organisation mode for this as I need to firm the date and get invites/postcards printed for mailing out. I will be taking some watercolours and paper with me to France, but I don't know how much painting I'll get done this trip as my main reason is to visit the art centre of St Paul de Vence and the Chagall museum in Nice (Biblical works). If we have time I'd like to visit Le Cannet again this year.

I am glad to say that they will open a Bonnard museum later this year in Le Cannet. I will just have to make do with the Renoir Museum in Cagnes sur Mer this trip if we have the time. So much to do- so little time to do it- We are determined to get to the Friday Market in Ventimigilia across the Italian border this trip. But plans are made to be flexible in our case... we may find something more interesting sidetracks us again. It's always nice to leave a reason to return. :D

Pancakes and Parlaying.

Yesterday we had another Tallaght arts forum get-together. I provided pancakes in honour of shrove Tuesday... yes I slaved over a hot frying pan for an hour :D. We had another enjoyable and varied discussion bouncing ideas around. The artist's forum is a great bonus to individual artists in the South Dublin area, giving a monthly opportunity to talk with other artists about work, work practice, and other relevant ideas. It also allows us to meet and get to know each other, ideal for forming liasons for collaborative works. The artists come from all backgrounds, multi-disciplines, some arts degree educated, some self taught, in other words a wide variety of artists and those employed within the arts.

The venue is supplied by Rua Red, (Tallaght arts center) and this month three of the Artists with studio spaces in the center opened their studios to the forum prior to the meeting. Many of us hadn't seen the spaces prior to this. One of the difficulties working as a Visual artist is that most of the time I work alone, in isolation from others. The forum gives me, like others, an opportunity to interact with other artists which allows me to discuss ideas and problems that may come up in normal working environments.

Now I need to start preparing applications, both for my Starry night retreat trip in New Mexico, and my fishing duties in the UK in september

New Mexico and Cambridgeshire....

I have just sent off my "official" application to Starry night retreat in New Mexico to confirm my residency for next year. I am looking forward to it, but I will have to start working on funding applications shortly. It is going to be a busy year this year, I need to try to raise some sponsorship towards my International team fly fishing duties this year too. (I have set the date for the residency as April 2012, just in case I hold my team place for the spring International, in March ;) though the Autumn competition in September again would suit me better)
I hope to get organised soon... ... for some reason I seem to be at sixes and sevens at the moment. Too many irons in the fire I think.
I will hopefully be back to general chaos shortly, that I can handle. :D

February 20th!!!

Where has the time gone? !Shock and Horror! It's almost a month since I posted on my blog.
I have been busy with angling club AGMs, both attending and organising, add to that some re-decorating of the house and I have been rather busy.
On the art front, Starry Night Retreat in Truth or Consequences in New Mexico have offered me a residency. I am hoping to go next spring, after my International Angling duties in the Autumn.
I am looking forward to going to New Mexico, the landscape in the State looks ideal for me. Hot dusty red earths in a very interesting landscape. I am just waiting confirmation on the availability of my chosen dates now, and then I will have to start seeking travel grants towards the cost of travelling. Flights to New Mexico are quite expensive, alongside all the other costs.
I think I can produce some interesting work from the area, I am hoping to go for six weeks which will allow me to produce about two dozen plein air works as a basis for finished pieces and maybe one or two further finished works on site and in the studio provided by Starry night as part of the residencies.

More on this later, in the meantime I need to get back to sanding and filling walls before stripping wallpaper from the next room on the agenda... This really isn't the kinda painting I like doing, but it needs doing before the fishing season starts. ;)

Turner at the National Gallery

I visited the Joseph W.M. Turner exhibition in the National Gallery. Luckily I had taken my new reading glasses so I could examine the works.. Needing reading glasses still feels wierd, I have had them less than a week and I'm still coming to terms with needing to put them on while reading or looking at things closely. I have already started hanging them halfway down my nose and looking over the top of them and reading when looking downwards. I'm like an old fogey :D

Meanwhile back at my studio, it is in dire need of a spring clean... I nearly need to play hop-scotch in between the boxes bags and other bits over the floor going from one end to the other. I need to re-stack some paintings too. I am in a new broom mood though, I am going to take some of the works and dispose of them to reduce clutter. I am also considering a studio sale to sell off a number of others, I really don't have the space to store all I have, and many are too old to exhibit in a Gallery. I may hire somewhere to have a sale early in the spring, and sell off a few before updating my website as a lot of the works on it will be included in the clearout. More on this later.

My new cards...

I recieved my new business cards and some postcards today. They are double-sided glossy cards from vistaprint, and were due in December but they got lost somewhere in the ether.. Vistaprint had no problem resending them to me though, which is nice customer service. I'm not sure if the glossy double-side business cards will be any more effective than my last ones but they do look nice.

The print job on the back side is a little dark but the quality of the cards is excellent for the price.
The colour balance on the postcards and the front of the business cards is perfect.

Enought pre-varicating though, I must get back to finishing off an exhibition proposal... that is after all why I switched the computer on..

January can get very busy, particularly if you miss the first half through laziness.. ;)