Accepted!

"Two's Company" has been accepted for The Festival exhibition. I am shocked as I thought it was too small. Five of us from the Otane art group were accepted which was very good considering that of the 180 works submitted half were rejected. Helen tells me that the whole exhibition is very professional and the standard high so I'm looking forward to seeing it today at the opening.

Gaye picked me up for art and we had a highly enjoyable trip there and back. We spoke of reincarnation, psychic dreams and poetry. I've never met anyone who has been so interested in my writing before. It has given me a lift I didn't expect.

I took the little calico cat brooch I'd painted as Colleen (a busy lady involved with multiple charities but who pops in for a chat with the group nearly every week) had said she wanted to buy it. We arrived dead on time at 10am but she'd already left the money so Marie left the brooch packet on a side table. This meant that my "Feline Doggeral" poem was read by nearly everyone throughout the day and Donna ordered a brooch for her daughter who is a vet in America.

I worked on my spring painting in The Four Seasons series. I had drawn it in roughly on the canvas the day before and was concentrating on painting the background. I cannot make the light teal that I achieved with the pastel drawing. It either comes out silage green or else a deep wedgewood blue which I actually like. After putting two solid glazes on I changed tack and am flicking paint lightly over the surface to imitate pastel strokes. Donna looked at my work which worried me as I thought the nude was not such a great one but she thought it looked good and was very interested in the process we were told to go through to arrive at the composition.

Betty is a local farmer/artist who has been working on a large painting of sheep and farmdogs in a yard. One of the sheep is sighted back on and there was much debate on how to improve this. At one point five people were clustered around the easel talking about it. As I left I said that if anyone asked me what I'd done that day I'd say I'd watched people discussing a sheep's bottom! Fortunately they found this funny.

Later that day I received an email from Irene to say my folder reached TLC safely and she was taking my work to a tutors' meeting today. She'd also passed Hippie Cat No 2 onto the exhibition organiser. I sincerely hope I have Irene as my tutor throughout stage two of my diploma. I have just gelled with her so well.


Finally here is a closeup of the camellia bush at the head of my drive. It has been a delight most of the winter. If you have camellias and roses you can be sure of colour in your garden all the year.