EASTERN OPEN 2011

I was pleased to be advised that the following work was accepted for the EASTERN OPEN 2011 and yesterday Sandra joined me to attend the opening at the Kings Lynn Art Centre. Out of 642 works submitted from 7 east of England counties, 126 were exhibited. Although I did not share in any of the prizes, visiting the Red Barn (one of the four galleries at the Centre used for the show) I noticed a lovely red spot on my work. The Assistant Arts and Education Manager introduced me to the buyer and we had an interesting chat. Gathering at the Magic Pool This work was created with acrylic inks on the contemporary slippery surface of YUPO/Lana Vanguard I have been experimenting with over the past 2 years. The judges were Professor Nick de Ville a 70's designer of album sleeves and tutor at the Goldsmiths' College; Anna Lucas a London based artist film maker; and Poul Webb a watercolourist and past student at Cambridge School of Art, work acquired by the HM Government Art Collection and exhibitor at the Royal Academy, Museum of Modern Art at Rijeka plus many other prestigious international events. Their comments were most encouraging ie '...all artists chosen can justly be proud of having created a very strong and contemporary Eastern Open 2011.'

EASTERN OPEN - FLYING OVER THE MARSHES

You may remember back in February I posted two images of paintings I had created whilst staying at Anitas when we were playing with interactive acrylics and acrylic inks. One of them was about marshes in the north of Norfolk with birds.

I liked this painting so much that I decided to make a pair to enter into the Eastern Open this year and here is the result. This time I added far more birds flying over and this time much darker and added the inevitable reeds that grow around our marshes and fenland of East Anglia.

Enlarge to see detail

Not only to remind you of the first painting under this title Flying over the Marshes, but to see them together, I took a photo of them as a pair. They are 20" x 8" canvases with both interative and ink acrylics.
Sandra kindly delivered them for me to our local collection point and now one must wait to see if the very august selection committee think anything of them. The panel consists of Artists & Aspire Project Leader, Head of Quality at Liverpool School of Art and Design and Senior Curator of Fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I hope I will be lucky a third time having been accepted in 2006 ands 2007. Tried last year with my flowers from my travels in Amsterdam and South Africa, but realise now they were not suitable for this event. I find that one of the hardest things to work out - what is right for which venue.

EASTERN OPEN

I have now finished my second piece from my travels for the Eastern Open and my is it different from the image I posted a few days ago!!! I've removed the images of the cave drawings I saw in the Cederberg Mountains as I felt they made the composition a bit messy. Instead, I concentrated on the vastness of the areas we drove through on long straight roads. So I had to have an idea for the bottom centre in place of some of the cave figure drawings, so I came up with a different type of Proteus I had found in Kirstenboch Botanical Gardens near Cape Town.

I developed Table Mountain in the back (ie the top) and decided on only one Artisian Well.

I think it makes a good pair with the Amsterdam Tulips.