A new painting and the RA

This week I’ve been busy painting the third of my St Ives Dinghies series, ‘St Ives Dinghies III’ which you can see on the website now. This will be one of the paintings that I will be taking over to Wivenhoe next week – I think there’ll be nine altogether – for Pru and Rosie, at the Sentinel Gallery, to choose from, for their March exhibition.

Meanwhile, the first in that series, has gone to seek it’s fortune at the Royal Academy.

Well, not exactly, not yet, as the first round for the Summer Open Exhibition submission is just digital! I will know by 13th March (a Friday – is this ominous??) whether it has got through the first round, and if it has I will then need to take it up to the RA for them to look at in reality.

I first sent in two years ago in 2013 – ‘Big Blue Dinghy’ was thrown out straight away! Then last year I entered ‘Track down to Bottengoms Farm’, and ‘Two Thames Barges, Rudder and Bow’. ‘Track’ got thrown out straight away, but I was thrilled that ‘Two Thames Barges’ got through to the next stage . . . . . and was then thrown out! So this year I’m keeping everything crossed that I might get one stage further. If I get to the stage of having to take it in, I am going to have the painting framed in a different way from my standard framing practice, with the board ‘floating’ in a shallow box frame that will be glazed – Graham thinks the judges might like this better!!

But for now, it’s just a question of waiting . . . . .

Snow seems to be heading down the country towards us – some snow paintings might soon be possible!!

Keep warm and enjoy the weekend 🙂