Firstly I've been asked if I would travel the world to do portraits that inspire every second day.
I'm not sure why every second day, why not every day or every third day but, to be honest, I'm not much of a traveller. As I've previously mentioned in my posts I tend to find it difficult to leave the house some days. My portrait painting is more what I would call bread and butter work and although I enjoy the results and the reaction of my happy customers I don't usually feel hugely inspired by it. I would like to travel more but my responsibilities at home are always a consideration.
I did once head off on my own in my 1979 VW Campervan for 6 weeks a couple of years ago. The idea was to make my way by painting as I travelled. I went up to the North of Scotland, down the West coast, over to Ireland and down that West Coast, back through Wales and up through the centre of England all the way back home. Unfortunately it rained for most of it so my idea of sitting by the beach with my easel attracting attention and selling some pieces turned into a more hermit like experience of me in a tin can alone with my thoughts. It still turned out to be one of the best things I've done for my own sanity and one of my major achievements as part of the journey was climbing to the top of Ben Nevis on my own in the driving rain. I came back a changed woman, far more serene and with a more clearly defined plan for my next moves.
The next one should be interesting. Who would win in a fight between Mr T and a T-Rex?
This is obvious to anyone with half a brain. Mr T of course. While the T-Rex was distracted by his mohican, Mr T could wrap his chains around the beast's feet tripping it up, he could then throw his chunky rings to the back of it's throat causing it to choke and expire. The only thing that could prevent this is if the T-Rex realised it was outmatched early enough and got on a plane to fly away because, as we all know, Mr T ain't gettin on no plane, fool!!
Any defining moments as an artist and what did I take from those experiences?
I have already told the story of how the Red Dress Art came about so I will leave that for you to read from the other posts if you care to. Other defining moments have been more along the lines of changing direction in my work as I've tried to find my 'thing'. I started off painting portraits but as I've mentioned before I find that more of a practical use of my skills that gives me an income of sorts if not always that regularly.
At some point early on I was asked to paint some local landscapes for a gift shop so I threw myself into that for a while and although I sold quite a few original pieces and got some mileage from prints my heart wasn't in it. Then I tried painting wildlife but it was very difficult to find non-copyrighted images and I came a cropper one time by accidentally using a copyrighted image. I ended up having to send the original painting to the photographer in Canada to avoid a hefty fine. It was a genuine mistake but I felt sick with worry for ages trying to sort it out so that put me right off that particular avenue.
After that I decided to try something more of interest to me and produced a series of 40s/50s Pin Up style paintings. That was lots of fun and I even set up a dedicated website for them under the pseudonym of Venus de Mons but I have since closed that. I'm a bit flighty it seems!
Now even my Red Dress Art is evolving although I'm not exactly sure in what direction but art is a journey much like life so we will just have to watch this space and wait and see where it takes me.
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