Our art group has just had its annual trip to “Patchings”, a small art and craft event held near Calverton, Nottingham. It consists of demonstrations and workshops, professional artists and craftspeople promoting their work , with art and craft materials for sale on various stands. This year we didn’t stay all day as we normally do – rain and wind stopped us. Patchings is great when it’s a sunny day, but this year – well let’s just say it’s as well it is held under cover in marquees. It brought back memories of Bakewell Show, which is usually a bit muddy, and I was glad I’d got my wellies. One or two exhibitors had their stands outdoors, and a water sculptor in particular looked a bit sorry for herself.
The festival runs over several days and, since we were there, it has been warm and sunny. Just as well really, it could otherwise have turned into a Glastonbury style mud-fest. Kevin and Barbara were off there today, and I can imagine it would have been very busy. It was difficult enough to get near the stands on the weekday we were there.
Right: Wet and rainy Patchings
Wendy Darker’s work caught my eye. She produces detailed paintings of farm animals and horses. The original paintings are quite large, often about 75cm square (approx 30”), and she had some small prints of these on sale. These were particularly impressive in their detail. If you didn’t know they were a print from something larger, you would wonder how on earth she had managed to get so much into them. Her website is at: http://www.wendydarker.co.uk. After seeing her work, I decided to give horses a go, and photographed the horses in the field at the back of our house. Now, normally, they get into all sorts of interesting positions when I watch them from the window, lying on their backs, play fighting, rearing, galloping, you name it, but the minute I reached for the camera, they immediately turned their backs to me and began grazing. I did my best with what I could get from them, adding an imaginary stable door into my picture. Not as detailed as I’d like but I’m hoping to improve my technique over the coming weeks.
Below: my first attempt at a pony.
Whilst sheltering from the rain, we discovered guest artist, Andrew Macara, demonstrating how to produce a painting of sun, trees and snow. He works fast, producing a painting in 2-3 hours, and seems to specialise in pictures featuring sun on snow or beaches, reflecting off gates, trees or washing on lines for example. Maggie, Sue, Gill and I watched his unusual technique, which involved painting the foreground before the background. http://www.andrewmacara.com/.
Below: Sir Richard Boyd Dawkins Room at Buxton Museum.
The following day, I took my Clowne Montage painting (see last week’s post) to exhibit at the open art exhibition at Buxton museum, so it will now be on show for a week, along with the “Dragon’s Back”, which forms the background of my Twitter home page, of course, the picture at the top of my blog page. Several other artists were there, dropping off their work, and they already had over 200 pieces. The journey was through the Peak District National Park on a sunny day. With its stunning scenery, it made me realise how fortunate we are to be able to live near such a place. Buxton was an attractive place too – it looked interesting and we hope to visit again for a bit longer in September when I collect my paintings.
Back at art group, Barbara and Kevin were busy creating very different pictures from the same photo of countryside with houses and a bridge, Madge had added something that looked like hyenas to her desert scene, and Elizabeth had completed her picture of two camels on the sea shore.
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