WEST MIDLANDS OPEN 2010

I've had some wonderful news today. I've had two pieces accepted for the 2010 West Midlands Open Exhibition to be held at Gas Hall, which is part of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. I'm really proud to have work accepted for this exhibition. I studied art and design at Birmingham Polytechnic and the museum and art gallery was a place I've visited again and again over the years, so for me this is a very high achievement.

I've been working hard these past few weeks at my long mossy tree drawing, which I based on a section of Wood From The Trees (using the original photograph for reference). I'm pleased with some aspects of it, mainly because it has opened up ideas of how my work might progress, though I find it difficult to wean myself away from what I find easy to do. Good art takes courage, and sometimes, especially the early part of the week when I'm tired out by my day job, all I want to do is listen to the radio and console myself with some comfy cross hatching. Most of the experiments I've started over the past year have ended up in my 'not sure what to do with these' pile (the largest pile, of course), but then again, in today's positive frame of mind, I'm thinking that maybe just because the experiments don't physically go anywhere maybe they do filter in through my thought processes somewhere and colour the way my work progresses.

Here's where I am with my long mossy tree anyway. Almost finished I think.



Too much thinking about work is never good for me, I need to put my thinking into action, so instead of just doodling and writing in my sketchbook, which doesn't always amount to much, as you can see...


…I've been going through my folders of photographs on the PC and making sketches with notes from the images on screen before printing a few photographs on my inkjet printer to make drawings from later.