Five Golden Guidelines For Busy Artists.

Well you know how it is.
Not enough hours in the day.
Too many ideas fizzing in your brain.
Too much domestic stuff to do.
And you're tired......

DO NOT PAINT IN YOUR GOOD CLOTHES !!

I hold my hands up right now in that I pinched this idea for some golden guidelines from the wonderful Katherine Tyrrell at Making a Mark, In fact she actively encouraged it with her blog post of the ten golden rules for every busy artist.

But I've written just five guidelines for us

Time Management. An Update.

It always fascinates me how other people manage their time. I read artist's biographies and listen to them talking on the television.
What sticks out for the most successful, notorious artists is their absolute devotion to their art, to the exclusion of everyone and everything else.

Hours and hours and hours.....

You've got to put the hours in!
Not only to the art but to the putting it out there. One of the most successful artists I know prides herself in painting just one day a week. The rest of her time she spends promoting her work, prints, original paintings, cushions, mugs ,cards and all sorts of merchandise. A little bit of art can go a long way!

As far back as June I wrote a post describing my weekly schedule, and this in a way is an update on that.

Although I wouldn't go quite as extreme as my super marketing friend I do recognise you  need to spend time on marketing efforts. To such an end I ditched one of my two going-to-work-and-getting-a-wage type days in favour of staying at home and doing the paperwork and the on-line stuff.

It's sort of worked.

Birdhouse detail .
It's telling really that a lot of my paintings have a domestic theme!

I really look forward to going to work one day a week now, and the finances aren't too bad.
I've painted more than anything else even though I said I was going to spend more time on the business side of my art practice.
I still can't paint to the exclusion of everything else. The domestic work  needs to be done, and the burden falls on me. I just cannot bring myself to ignore it, and this I suspect is my downfall.
I once heard a female artist being interviewed  on the radio. "I would have been more successful if I'd had  a wife to look after me" she said.

But life has to be rounded, and a life spent simply painting would be dull......Or would it?

Painting En Plein Air. Everyone Knows That It's Different For Girls.

This is what happens if you're a man.
You decide you want to do a bit of open air painting or drawing. You get up, throw on your old work clothes, gather together your painting kit and off you go.
Town or country you get yourself in a good spot nicely settled and get on with it. If any one approaches you, unless you want a chat, you glare at them and they go away.

Eastfield Allotments. Mary Kemp.

But every one knows it's different for girls.

Peterborough Arts Society Autumn 2014 Exhibition. A Personal View.

The 85th Anniversary Autumn Exhibition of 

Peterborough Art Society.

St. John's Church, Cathedral Square, Peterborough . 

12th to 22nd November 2014.

When I first came to Peterborough I joined the local art society.

It was busy, successful and vibrant, and some of the ladies were very intimidating!
There was a strict criteria to be an exhibiting member, and sales at shows were good.

4 Really Good Art Blogs.

I am going to tell you about 4 of the best, most informative and colourful art blogs I've come across in my travels in cyberspace.
And if you have a favourite blog I'd like to hear about that too.

Mary Kemp. Brancaster. Detail.

When I first started writing my own art blog I hadn't much idea of  what form it should take.

Monsal Head in Derbyshire. Take My Breath Away!

Sometimes you visit somewhere that makes you gasp!
It takes your breath away, and reminds you just how big and plain amazingly awesome this funny old world is.
For me Monsal Head in Derbyshire was such a place.

Monsal Head, Derbyshire

The wind was blowing, the clouds scudding across the sky.  I felt I could just jump up and the wind would take me up and away!

I drew this picture in my sketchbook with a thick pencil. It only took a few minutes.

Here's the painting completed back in the studio.

That took a bit longer!

"Take My Breath Away!"
Mary Kemp.
Oil on canvas.
60 x 25 cm.

Available from  Rippingham Art

Colour Rules The World ! O.K.

Red, yellow, blue, green.
Loads of colour!

I try, I really, really try, to keep the colour down.

Sometimes I restrict my palette, and for a day or two that seems quite calming and somehow appropriate to a person of my rather conventional outlook on life.

( You know the sort of thing, wash up after every meal, pay your bills on time, always be polite)

But what ever happens in my world the colour just keeps on bursting though.
And it's not as though it happens whether I'm happy or sad, angry or bored. It just happens.

In my previous blog I talked about recording a visit to Northumberland, and how I painted that. "This is serious painting" I thought. Grown up painting. Possibly, if I'm being a bit gender stereotypeish, this is how men paint. Not that I want to paint like a man. I don't.
I quite liked the result though.

Southwold Lighthouse. Mary Kemp.
Detail.Oil on canvas panel.30 x 40cm

And I posted it on Etsy , my first muted painting.
And then I thought I'd paint another. And I did.

And then another.

But I couldn't. I looked at the palette and felt a bit dreary and so I gave in and this is the result.

Colour, colour, colour !

And where do I go from here? 

If I'm to be honest I think I'll just have to follow my instinct and keep company with bright colours. I don't seem to be able to maintain anything too tasteful for very long.

p.s. Can you see the bright red canvas to the left of the easel? Here lies a whole new story!