oops forgot some....

my mini master & mini mistress series complete :-)

I did enjoy doing these tiny drawings, now I've just got to decide which one to put on my mini canvas - so far the popular choice is Georgia O'Keefe's Two Call Lilies on Pink...just got to try and find the time to do it now! but if I can get my grubby little hands on some more mini canvases and easels, then I shall do some more - its great fun! Very much like 'selling out' but some friends have already expressed an interest in having some mini art works...and its time I stopped just giving work away - my art supplies and materials are beginning to dwindle and I'm not in a very good financial position myself to just replace them :-)

art of 2012...

A rather dramatic header I know, but when your first art exhibition of the year just happens to be the 'must see'/'once in a life-time' exhibtion, well...its a good way to start the year!

Spent a lovely afternoon yesterday at the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery London. Had bought my tickets back in May 2011, so it had been a long wait and a bit of a birthday treat to myself. Its been sold out for months and I've heard tell that should you want to, tickets were being sold on for over £200 a piece. So knowing I only paid a lowly £8 for mine made the experience all the sweeter :-)

I'd spent the last few weeks preparing myself mentally for the manic crush that would surround me, and had a small taster a few weeks ago when I went to see the Gerhard Richter exhibition at Tate Modern. I deftly managed to swerve and avoid the hoards by taking my time and looking at the work as teeming masses parted and moved on...an almost Moses-like parting of the Red Sea!!!

The paintings were wonderful...but I wanted to sink my teeth into the drawings more, and what a revelation they were!!! SOOOOOOO small !!! and I mean absolutely tiny! Completely magnificent, astonishingly breathtaking, and exquisitely done. I could have gazed and studied them for hours! Not just Da Vinci's but those of his pupil, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio - my oh my, that boy could draw!

The curation, was subtle - and very cleverly done considering how small the exhibition actually was. Only 8 rooms and more than half of the work was that of his assistants etc. Two rooms had you wandering in and out and back through them - nice touch I thought, but may have less to do about re-inforcing the images and more to do with crowd control and sheer quantity of people! Still, having both Madonna of the Rocks' in the same room was brilliant and the fact I stood in the middle of the room, just myself and another couple, standing their, heads moving from side to side (wouldn't have looked out of place at a Wimbledon match!), comparing and contrasting the two...while hundreds of others jostled each other 12 inches away from each paintings, totally unable to observe the subtle differences between them and having to shift their heads so the lights moved the glare of the glaze off the image....fools!...me and my two stranger companions commented on the better and superior view we had...they should have done their homework!

So, inspired by this visit, and the completion of my Kings Wood painting, I set out today to reproduce some 'mini Masters and Mistresses' as I have bought the tiniest canvas imaginable to work on!! So far I have 4 images I'm considering, but obviously there's 100's more I could consider...however, I've only 1 mini canvas (wish I'd bought loads more now!)....

Kings Wood, Challock - 120cm x 90cm - Oil on Canvas

finally finished it :-) its such a struggle to find the time to get the art work done, but for the while at least, it will just have to be little and as often as possible!