Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and new work

A bit of a holiday week, visited the Summer exhibition and worked on quite a few paintings. Jake and Dinos dinosaurs "The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights," ( I wish I could think of titles like that ) managed to look like they were challenging Sir Joshua Reynolds on his plinth. The water fountains were working, which always excites the children into running back and forwards into the streams of water.


I thought the chose of work in the exhibition was better this year, I lingered longer looking at pieces and found quite a lot of work I would buy if I had the money.As usual there were many prints that I enjoyed including woodcuts by Sasa Marinkov, called "Inside the Forest", Jonathan Gibbs " Bird, Tree and Fish" and John Bryce's " Thames Barrier" "The Humming Bird Tree by Mark Fairinington was beautiful, but sky hung, Christopher Le Brun's water colours of towers in mythical landscapes were atmospheric.

I've been working on some of the paintings I started on retreat a couple of months ago, this little one is in it's final stages. Others are of the woods and one in a smaller watercolour, mandala style of flowers and herbs with the Buddha in the centre, for the E17 Art Trail. Which I'll put up later.

Gardens of Delight

I'm preparing for a new exhibition as part of the E17 Art Trail, called Gardens of Delight. It is a celebration of the garden in Waltham Forest and I am inviting anyone in Waltham Forest to send in photographs of a part of their garden, from window box to allotment. Some thing that inspires you or brings delight, from flowers to birds and wildlife.

Gardens are one of the most important areas for wildlife, particularly in cities and there is growing concern that more and more gardens are being lost to building developments. There is a new manifesto for gardens supported by many organizations, called Let our gardens live.

I personally couldn't live long in London without a garden, it's something about touching another space, surrounded by breathing living plants and wildlife, whilst in the middle of concrete and brick.