Thursday 30 October 2014

POTAHOLICS AND PORTRAITS

Tonight we drove into Canterbury to attend 'an audience with Henry Sandon' who is a self-confessed Potaholic.       Fans of The Antiques Roadshow (as we are) will be familiar with Henry's bubbly personality and squeaky giggle when he gets excited ... and that's quite frequently.    At 86 years young, Henry kept us all entertained with a potted (excuse the pun) history of his life and achievements from his childhood days with a father who trained dogs to act in silent movies to his career as an archaeologist and his long history with Antiques Roadshow as an expert on pottery and porcelain, in particular, Royal Worcester.   An absolute joy to listen to him

I took a couple of photos in the Grounds of Canterbury Cathedral and the nearby Theatre - it all looks so beautiful lit up in the evening




This is just outside the Theatre building and I should have posed David in front to give an idea of the scale - it is pretty large







Anyway ... some more good news (blowing my own trumpet again I fear) ... my Tamil Nadu man picture which sold at last week's exhibition, actually clocked up the most votes from the exhibition visitors.   I received a 'monetary award' for winning the public vote  yeayyy!  

Actually I'm more than chuffed to learn that the 4 works I submitted all got lots of votes and came in at 1st, 6th, 8th and 10th so I think Canterbury is a good place to exhibit my style of portraiture in the future.    There were 141 pictures hung altogether

and another update on the latest cp picture.    I put in a base colour for the hair but decided to work more on the skintones this morning - will come back to those fiddly braids at the weekend.   I think its kind of pulling together again but I do still have mixed feelings about it.   I've reached the stage where I've put in too many hours to abandon it now so ..... tomorrow is another day etc etc


I'm hoping to put in my first appearance at one of the regular Monday evening meetings of the Canterbury Society of Arts on Monday.    There will be a presentation re. Giclee printing which I'm interested to learn more about and an intriguing second half session where members are invited to take along a painting/drawing for discussion about choosing a suitable title

I'm quite tempted to take this picture along as I'd hate to be politically incorrect by naming it Black Beauty or similar .... and 'the hair-braider's daughter' sounds like the first lime of a limerick ...

any ideas for titles in the meantime please?



5 comments:

  1. Super! Don't abandon it! Can't think of a good title right now but will give it more thought as I wake up more.

    Sounds as if your cold is better but news of the Tamil Nadu man and your other works at Canterbury would help anyone feel better! Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's wonderful news, congratulations! This painting is so beautiful already. You truly have a gift for bringing out the characteristics of your individual subjects. I wouldn't let somebody else title my piece, though... this painting is yours and yours alone, and the title is part of the creation process. Think about why you were pulled to paint this particular subject and why you portrayed her in this particular way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello Katherine. Thanks very much for your comments. You are one of the lucky few who infallibly come up with great ideas/titles for your work ... I struggle so much with titles (but am battling a head cold at the moment so my brain is more than usually addled just now) LOL.

    Thanks Jan. The cold is a lot better but the cough is keeping me awake so sleep depravation is taking over LOL

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love Black Beauty as a title. I think the picture is coming along really well. Shades of Black maybe.

    Nice to see the pix of Canterbury, it is so long since I last visited. Always fascinated me because of the Thomas Beckett connection.

    Congratulations on your commendations and awards.

    ReplyDelete
  5. She looks gorgeous! And I do love poppy seeds and the cheese and onion combo sounds yummy!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting my Blog. Let me know what you think :-)

I have disabled the Captcha requirement at the request of followers who find it irritating when posting comments. However to stop the subsequent flood of spam posts I can no longer accept comments from Anonymous sources.
Apologies if this is a problem
Thank you
Sue
x