A mixed bag

Well, as the post title would suggest it has been a week of high's and lows.  My work has been picked up by Emerge Gallery who I am now working with.  They support new/emerging artists as the name would suggest http://www.emergegallery.co.uk/ and they contacted me after having seen my work in progress right here on my blog!
My work didn't get pre-selected for the Threadneedle Prize, which I tell myself is fine, never mind - I'll try again next year...but I worked really hard on my submission and really laboured to get it finished in time for the deadline, then spent 2 hours just trying to upload my picture onto my submission form as the website was in chaos with 2,000 people all registering in the final 24hours.  So in truth I was gutted, but there are other prizes to go for.  My work is going to be shown as part of Art Takes Times Square, albeit probably briefly - but because of lots of wonderful people who voted for my work it will be shown.
I have a piece entered for the John Jones 2D art competition - and I have now found out about the Marmite Painting Prize, definately getting in on that one.
Exciting to have stuff I'm going for, but obviously with everything entered I have to prepare myself for disappointment with each one.  Over the last week I have had different people tweeting or messaging me with words of advice, and the main thing is - you will be told "no" so many times but you just have to keep all on.

So it's back to the studio this week for the first time in a fortnight and I'm carrying on with my "Essex" series which I'm having a lot of fun doing.  I've attached the images of the first 2 in the series here so they can be seen together and as the week goes on I'll be showing the work in progress at the studio, so keep coming back to have a little shufty and see how it's going.  (Oh and if anyone has any ideas on what I can call the "Untitled" piece let me know...it's the one on top, I just can't come up with a name for the glittery little number!).