3 Months later 

My last post was in APRIL? Gosh. 

I'll do a quick update, and then do a different post where I ramble a little about inconsequentialities.

MAY:

Fluid  |  30 x 40 cm  |  Acrylic on Canvas

I like this painting so much, I might keep it. I think because it's a little too sharp, a little too vectory, and it amuses me. Also, the last painting I decided to keep, was done 4 years ago, and it's time for another.

JULY: 

Foiled I & II  |  30 x 30 cm each  |  Acrylic on Canvas

Jeez, how fun is foil to paint! If only I could find more sweets wrapped in foil, but not printed with ugly logos and such.. but that's a monologue in itself.

These were great fun, challenged myself by tweaking the saturation of colour. So the idea was to try and make them work as a unit, with the slight change in angle and depth of fokus as well as the change in colour, different, but 'the same' enough to still work together.

More of these might follow. At the moment though, I'm waiting to receive paintings back from Jo'burg - did I forget to mention?

Okay so I was part of the Jan Cilliers group exhibition with Lizamore and associates in June, my first showing that far from home! But none of my works sold, and so they're on their merry way home, and I intend to send them, along with the two Foiled works to either Everard Read Gallery or mayhaps somewhere completely different, we shall see. 

These three were at the show, 'Toffee Apples in various stages of undress' and 'Jannie verjaar'

ALSO. There was June. In June I worked on what I like to think of as my last Candy Apples painting, only I'm still working on it. It won't let me finish! I keep changing the background and tweaking the contrast in the plastic, and while it looks nice from afar, it just isn't working yet. So it remains a work in progress. *sigh.

I think that pretty much brings us up to speed. As to the future? Well. I don't know yet. But that's for another post.

 Autumn! 

Does April count as autumn yet? Well I'm freezing my toes off, and the trees in our little homestead have all reddened, so might as well be.

As promised, updated photos of Frolicking, more or less colour correct, and already in their new home!

Also, I thought I'd share the 'how to' that was in The South African Artist magazine last year. I'm seeing it as more of a glimpse into how I work than a how to, to be honest, the idea of hundreds of people copying my painting is shudder inducing. But this kind of thing would have meant so much to me as a budding (clue-less) painter, and that excites me.

I know you faithful blog-readers have seen hundreds of these kinds of step-by-step posts from me, but I don't usually do it with notes, so hopefully that's informative!

 Sneak Peek 

As promised, a little preview of my frolicking candy apples. 30 x 30 cm each.

I will most likely have to photograph them again, as you can see I'm struggling to capture the colour and texture - that background is something like charcoal with a little maroon, if I had to describe it (in reality, obviously there's about 15 more colours mixed in, but you know what I mean!). Also, it should be noted that I actually painted these simultaneously, next to each other on the easel - and it has to be said it is VERY satisfying to complete two paintings in a day!

Almost April

 In which I profusely apologise for not updating more often

And so. Every time I think I've succumbed to chaos, it gets a little worse. Adulthood and all that. 
We had a brief medical scare earlier this year, which accounts for little painting, no blogging and rather a lot of panic. It turned out to not be serious at all, but when it concerns your own body, everything is rather serious if you ask me! And so we're still trying to get back to normal. Suffice to say I am appreciating the little things quite a bit more than I did last year :P

Update time though: 

The last of the December drawings, completed in January, of the late Toto, beloved and never forgotten.

Toto
A3, pencil on 160 gsm untextured paper

The first candies of 2015! Completed in February, it turned out rather more 'vectory' and graphic than originally planned, but I'll admit, I'm rather crushing on this painting! 
Jannie verjaar is the term we used for the 'mix-o-drink' (aanmaak koeldrank) at every childhood birthday, red, and almost tasting of strawberry or raspberry or just possibly red with soda in it. These little cheap lollies taste exactly like the red of birthdays, pool parties and sun.

Jannie verjaar
40 x 50 cm
Acrylic on Canvas

After Jannie verjaar I did a commission of running horses, not to be shared on social media, but indeed a massive learning curve! My first landscape and first animal painting all in one. And for someone who has absolutely no idea how horses work, I'm quite proud that I survived it. 

Shortly followed by this painting, which rather didn't feel like being done, and fought me for every stroke. So much so that I managed to do two other paintings in-between bouts of painting and raging at it. 
This one was particularly hard because of the properties of yellow paint, which tends to want to turn green if you so much as think about adding any other shade to it! (banana and bubblegum flavoured, much tastier than you might imagine)

Blue lolly, Yellow lolly
50 x 40 cm
Acrylic on Canvas

I'll post the two in-between paintings later this week, right now my laptop seems to be turning itself off and on of it's own volition, which isn't conducive to good blogging. And of course, I'm working on yet more lollipops as we speak, never-ending fountain of candy and all that :) And yes. I eat them all. 

Also, it has to be said, it's my dad's birthday today (60!) and I'm off to eat all the gluten free snacks my mom could conceive of! 

 SUMMER SALE 2015 

Rust-en-Vrede Gallery

Join us at the opening of Rust-en-Vrede's Summer Sale tomorrow night, 20 Jan '15 at 19:00!

These works will be on sale for LESS THAN THE MARKET VALUE from 20th January to 5th February only, after which it will revert back to the normal price. Only members may buy - but you can become a member on opening night :)

In completely unrelated news, LOOK AT MY GORGEOUS TOMATOES! I shall make a salad! :P

 December Drawings continued 

Michelle's Portraits

I absolutely LOVED working on these drawings! What charming kids. I've been so Blessed in that  all the photo's I had to work with for the December Drawings were amazing, great quality AND loads of personality. 
As with Layla and Zoe's double portrait in 2014, the biggest challenge with these kids' faces is not to accentuate the lines too much, to keep the skin soft and youthful, but also keep the correct details that make them who they are. I'm really proud of how these drawings came out - pity that some of the photo's are a little dodgy, my camera also died, so I'm havng to rely on my husbands phone camera (which, sad but true, is in fact a better camera than my little Nikon) and that also means I can't take photos in daylight. My own phone camera is not quite on par, all his photos end up hazy and soft, boo. 

ANYWAY. speaking of Layla and Zoe, their companion Toto sadly passed away in December, and this is my drawing of him:

You will be missed, dear Toto.

 Happy New Year! 

*not really a recap*

We had a very laid back new years eve with friends in Milterton; braai, drinks, deliciously silly conversation; and walked down to the beach just before the count-down, to watch the Waterfront fireworks show from across the water - 

so imagine this view, but with fireworks! It was incredible!

I took a moment to walk into the water and just focus myself for the oncoming year. And I said a little prayer, thanking the Lord for the successes of 2014, and that I came out of it a little stronger. And that I would work harder and produce better work in 2015. What a wonderful moment, with the laughter and celebrating of my companions in the background! 

And so, with that as a starting point for 2015, I'm going to keep the looking back to a minimum.

This is my art year. The highlight was being published for the first time in an international magazine, and a close second was being published in a local magazine. 

The low was definitely the couple of weeks somewhere in the middle which I had to spend playing with my toes, too broke to buy the next canvas, and just waiting for something to happen. 

Basically, if I had to nutshell it, one of the galleries representing me decided it was time to push my prices up rather significantly - HIGH FIVES ALL ROUND! - and then I proceeded to have the lowest amount of sales through my galleries that I've had since I actually started exhibiting. Yeah. Pretty bad.

Thankfully I have loyal customers who come back for more, word of mouth, and social media connections, and the commissions pretty much carried me through the year. 

But it wasn't easy. I know it doesn't sound that terrible, but when you're in the 4th/5th/6th week of nothing happening, with no idea of when or even if something's going to change, it really is impossible to 'mind-over-matter' it, and a little self-doubt goes a long way. 

I come out the other side a little disillusioned, and a little scarred, but still thankful, grateful, and always with renewed hope.

That desperate lull in sales was the reason for my excitement over the December Drawings receiving so much interest. It was awesome to be reminded that to the public my work is good, its just the money that's an issue.

I'm so proud of the work I did last year, and so excited about all the things I have planned for 2015. I bumped my head a couple of times, but I've come far, and I can't wait to find out what the next weeks, months and years have in store for me and my art!

*News: 

- My husband became an uncle! Welcome to the world little Anje! 

- And we finally painted the interior of the house! Its not margarine yellow anymore, but instead a greeny gray. And it makes such a MASSIVE difference! 

- And we finally cleaned our teeny tiny little back'yard' (like 1 x 3 meters of walled in clothes drying space)

- Which lead to me getting bitten by a spider. Panic all round, since we have A LOT of black widows around the house, and so we googled it and found that my 'bite wound' looked exactly like a black widow's - even more panic - and so we waited for the excruciating muscle spasms to start (to verify that it was worthy of panic, and then rush to the doctor) but it never came. But on day two the toe was swollen double, a couple of hours later I had two little bloaty sausages for toes, and even later three, itching like mad, and not really fitting into any decent looking shoe. But today (day five? I think?) it finally started looking better. So I think I shall not only survive, but keep all my toes! Which is great, cause my balance is pretty bad as is.

That's all for now, I need to make coffee and couchpotato for a couple of hours!