‘Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.’
J. R. R. Tolkien
Each week I would like to write a post which summarises the adventures in art from the previous week. I see this work I do as a big journey, an adventure and as much as I have it in my head as to where I would like to end up, I have no idea what adventures I will have between then and now.
One thing I would like this blog to be is a record of my journey from amateur to professional artist, whatever that may be! So, here is entry number one for my ‘Trail Notes’, a log book of what happens as I walk the unknown pathway. This one will be extra long as it summarises about four weeks worth of work!
‘For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.’ Jeremiah 29:11
‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.’ Psalm 119:105
These last couple of weeks I have been working hard to set myself a routine and a basic plan for the year. As I have more time this year to commit to painting I want to be faithful with my time as my number one priority is to support my hubby Michael in his role as Pastor by looking after the kids and house. He does not place this pressure on me but I feel that its my first priority in order to free him up to get on with what he’s called to do.
In doing some research I have managed to find a short list of art prizes that I am able to enter. I find that I am not eligible for quite a few either because of distance, age, race or non membership of a society. Narrowing down the options I have come up with these:
- The Royal Agricultural Society Easter Show
- Gallipoli Art Prize
- Art in the Hills Art Prize
- Kogarah Art Prize
- Westmead Hospital Art Prize
- Cliftons Art Prize
- Bankstown Art Society Prize
- The Linden Postcard Art Prize
- St George Art Prize
- Hornsby Art Prize
I am not actually planning on entering every single one of these but hope to enter six art prizes this year.
In the last couple of weeks I have put in my entry form for the first one, the Royal Easter Show. There is no guarantee that my paintings will be accepted once I take them to the right place. This is hard when I am relying on family money to pay the entrance fee (and I have not won any prizes yet so have no funds to dig into). This is what I am entering:
I am almost ready to enter the Gallipoli Art Prize. I had to get a Stat Dec signed by a JP for that one and did that this morning. The painting I am entering is this one (which needs one or two tweaks and finishing):
The first two I finished at the end of last year in prep for entering the Royal Easter Show but the above painting has been done in the last few weeks. Oil on Canvas 60cm x 76cm.
I have also been thinking about entering the ‘Art in the Hills’ Art Prize which has a theme of ‘Light and Life’. I haven’t decided whether to enter as yet (Entries are due on March 7 so I’d better decide soon) as I need to detach myself from the painting itself! Here’s what I’ve done so far, hands, butterflies and a few other bits not yet finished:
Her eyes still look a bit dead so I need to work on that but apart from that I’m happy with the face. Painting is hard work!! This is hours and hours of work, no idea how many but more than 20 hours I would think. This one is Oil on Canvas 71cm x 71cm.
Finally in regards to painting, I did do one smaller work between these two, just to paint with no deadline. I called this one ‘Look’ and its Oil on Canvas 40cm x 40cm:
The rest of my time has been spent in networking through using twitter ‘properly’ and setting up this website! That included writing my artist’s statement and resizing/watermarking about 150 images. I haven’t even gotten as far as working out what to sell and how much for as yet.
This being week five of the ‘painting year/school year’ I’m pretty happy with how much I have done so far. I’m not sure if the pace will pick up or slow down but ‘trail notes’ in the future should be much shorter as they will be done a week at at time.
“The road goes ever on and on”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Amanda
