A lovely part of my work as an animal portrait painter is when a client gets in touch regarding a memorial portrait. It’s such an honour to be asked to produce an artwork of an owner’s much missed pet and this latest portrait is of a beautiful Border Collie called Jack, whose eyes just melted my heart.
I’m pleased to say that Jack’s owner and family were very happy with his portrait and hopefully it will bring a bit of comfort to them.
In Liverpool, where I grew up, this is a phrase used to mean ‘on with the next thing’ often quoted by the late, great Paul O’Grady. Well the next ‘cab’, or exhibition, for me is a first… I’m taking part in the very popular Herefordshire Arts Week (H.Arts) 2-10 September and it’s quite exciting!
In our little village of Leintwardine, the historic grade 1-listed 12th century St Mary Magdalene church will be playing host to a collective of 16 creatives who will be showcasing their work from art, ceramics, woodwork, bronzes, millinery plus more. Most work will be for sale too.
Here’s a small selection of my animal paintings that will be available.
Come and visit – there are two venues in Leintwardine – venue 119 which is Lou Lothian’s beautiful pottery and venue 120 the above mentioned collective group in the village church.
Details of all venues and locations around Herefordshire, can be found on the H.Arts web site – just click this link… http://www.h-art.org.uk
See you there!
This old English nursery rhyme mentions several churches dotted around London, so it’s probably fitting that my two paintings ‘Oranges’ and ‘Lemons’ will be taking part in a Summer Exhibition run by Ludlow Art Society and it will be held in….. St Laurence’s Church in Ludlow, Shropshire.
Running from Saturday 19th to Monday 28th August in the middle of this beautiful market town, there will be lots of wonderful artworks on display so hopefully we will have lots of lovely visitors popping in to have a mooch.
You never know, you may hear the peal (or peel!) of the church’s bells too!
Well it’s turning into a fairly busy year, exhibition-wise. There are a lot of available art exhibitions to submit work to, very tempting, but I’m trying to build my stocks up in between commissions, so I’ve limited myself to the following events…so far.
The Ludlow Art Society and Association of Animal Artists exhibitions are on at the moment, Ludlow actually closes today and I’m delighted to write that ‘Barb’ sold at that one, yay! The Rose Paterson gallery at Weston Park near Shifnal, UK is the setting for the AAA exhibition and it makes for a grand day out, as the grounds are gorgeous, the work on show is amazing and the café does a great flat white!
In a month or so, my donated 5” x 7” ‘postcard’ will be displayed in Vancouver, alongside many others, in the annual Twitter Art Exhibition – monies raised will benefit the Urban Native Youth Association – so if you’re in that Canadian neighbourhood, don’t miss it.
Then later in the year, I’ll be taking part in H-Arts which is the Herefordshire arts festival here in the UK and I’ll be exhibiting alongside a collective of local artists in our village church… very exciting!
Here are some of my submissions to the various exhibitions.
Exhibitionitis – is that a thing, is there a cure?!
It’s always exciting taking part in an art exhibition and my first one with the Association of Animal Artists will be happening from this weekend until 30 November.
The venue is the Granary Room in Weston Park near Shifnal – a beautiful country house in the Shropshire countryside , which I’m looking forward to discovering.
These are my 3 exhibits which will be taking part amongst an amazing display of talented work by animal artists from all over.
Whether you want to treat yourself to a piece of animal art or just view this collection of work, I reckon it’ll be a grand day out in lovely surroundings. Enjoy!
This small 8″ x 8″ painting has been chopped and changed a few times and I eventually ended up with a portrait of a young black bull, a steer if you will, which has proved quite popular. He’s just sold through my Artfinder store within a few days of adding him and I was sort of sorry to package him up and send him off to his new home. You never know how your work is going to be received – one person’s meat is another person’s poison!
After a bit of thought and deciding to just go for it, I applied to join the Association of Animal Artists and was delighted to be accepted. There are amazing artists with an incredibly diverse approach to creating animal art in this group. I’m looking forward to admiring the work and linking up to other artists as well as taking part in various exhibitions and social events. Yay!
I’ve been doing a few paintings on small 5” x 7” canvasses recently and enjoying scaling down – the longest side is about the length of a standard pencil. A good excuse to dust off my tiny ‘000’ brushes. The new smaller sizes mean I can offer a lower price for commissions and sales, yay! That is, as long as the subject will fit on a postcard size format! Here’s a couple of recent examples…
I can’t believe it’s been almost 12 months since I last posted on my blog, but it has been a busy period! Since last December, we have sold our home in Scotland and moved 200 miles south to our new home in Herefordshire. Moving during a pandemic has been… well, challenging shall we say, but we are now settled in a lovely village with a friendly community.
Although I miss my pals up north, it has meant that we are now closer to family and will see more of them.
Fresh fields mean new opportunities and I’ve now got my studio set up and cracking on with commissions and other work, meeting new people and getting involved in art societies as well as village life.
I’ll be posting much more regularly than in the past year, so watch this space!
In the meantime, here are a few recent works which have been produced in my new space.
Rosie Mark Artwork 