Painting the sky & Colchester FC

A productive yet shorter day at the studio than I would have liked.  Wanted to spend the whole day, but its been a really busy and rather tense week.  So of course, I wake up with a crashing bloody headache this morning.  Didn't get to the studio till this afternoon but managed to get quite a bit more done on my newest work.  Still not finished, but pretty sure I will get it finished this week. (these were taken on my phone so not the best quality)

Really enjoying painting this one, particularly liked painting the sky on this by looking staight out of my studio window today and painting the sky outside, just above Colchester FC stadium (which is just across from my studio window)....they were playing at the time, not sure if they won or not!

Higher resolution pictures will be on my artist page at http://www.emergegallery.co.uk/eve-brinkley.php next week.

Big screens, Q & A's, half finished work...Marmite

Yet again I find the only time I can make time for a post is 11 o'clock at night.  Trying to wrap up the GCSE's for this year and organise an exhibtion for the students is very time consuming so unfortunately didn't get time to get to the studio at the weekend, very unsmiley face.

Since my last post, however, a few exciting things have happened.  It hasn't all been GCSE paperwork and drudgery!  Some of my work was shown last week in NYC, on Broadway!  Big screens and at some point between 7.45 and 8.15 (Eastern) my work appeared on over Broadway......very awesome.  I couldn't get over to see it and it was too late here for me to stay up to watch on the webcams as I had a full day's teaching the next day (just as well I didn't as the webcams all went down apparently). But the knowledge that my work was visable on Broadway is fantastic.  I'm really grateful to all the people who voted for my work and enabled that to happen.

Then, my first interview with Emerge Gallery at http://www.emergegallery.co.uk/blog.php, which was incredibly exciting and really enjoyable. 

No time in th studio at the weekend so my current piece remains semi naked, with only some underpainting to prevent it's blushes. 

And finally before I go off to bed, my attempt to apply to the Marmite Prize tonight failed.  Our computer quite frankly is knackered, it has about 35 vertical lines across the screen and struggles to cope with anything.  It looks like downloading a pdf was just too much for it, so after watching that bloody little green bar stay frozen for over 20mins I gave up and asked the lovely people at Marmite Prize to email me the form.  That's over half an hour of my life this evening that ain't coming back! I wish there were more hours in the day....oh there are I just need to get off Twitter a bit earlier in the evening.

I really want to get to the studio this weekend, so that I can post more complete images of my current painting.  Very excited about getting this finished - please let me find the time I need to get myself down t'studio!  Talking of excited, I found that Stewie from Family Guy is on Twitter....that too is a high point of the week.

No.3 off of the ground

So made it to the studio this week and got going on my 3rd work of my "Essex" series.  Only drawn up onto the canvas so far but ready this week for the underpainting.  My studio space is not the biggest but since I've moved in there my work has been getting bigger and bigger.  Apparently the artist who had it before me had the opposite happen with her work and it got teeny tiny. At this rate my work will be back to the 10ft canvases I painted during my degree by the summer!

I would have gone to do some more work on it today, but was at the Download Festival yesterday - Metallica were completely fantastic!  I also enjoyed Steel Panther's performance, in a post big-hair and leggings metal, ironic sort of a way!  Quite surprised at how many woman got their boobs out in the audience when asked to by the lead singer.  So, we left at about 11 and then it took us an hour and a half of walking endlessly around the fields surrounding the venue, turned into makeshift carparks before finally finding the car.  Then a further hour to get out, finally getting home and to bed for 4.30am.  Getting to the studio was the furthest thing from my mind - a day in front of the tele watching Storage Wars semed like a much better idea.

With half term nearly finished it's back to work tomorrow, so studio time will be relgated to the weekends again...at least for the next 6 weeks until the summer holidays.  Although with this one underway and a whole host of prizes to enter over the summer, think I'll have to find some time to get to my little studio space during the week too

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!).

A lot going on

Still marking GCSE work so 11.15 on a Wednesday night seems to be my only opportunity this week to post.  Okay, so I finished my submission to to the Threadneedle Prize (although it took me over 2 hours to upload the image last night as they were having such a high demand over their website....in fact they increased the deadline by 2 hours today because a lot of people were having problems.  I have to say that the support was fantastic, advice on Twitter and when I rang in a panic they were lovely!  I digress) anyway, I'm really pleased with the piece so even if it doesn't make pre-selection I'm really proud of it.  Generally happy with how my "Essex" series is going, lots of ideas - 3 paintings now in the initial stages at the studio including the biggest canvas I have tackled since graduating.
I also joined Emerge Gallery, an online gallery who work with new UK artists.  We need more people like Emerge Gallery, I really admire the commitment to giving new artsts a platform....something which I'm sure mostly every artist ever would agree - is the hardest thing to get.  So swing past their great new website, http://www.emergegallery.co.uk/

The summer season is well and truly on now.  For the next few months I have a series of prizes and awards to apply for, not to mention waiting for the results of Art Takes Times Square (my work will be shown at the launch and VIP party, even if I don't make it onto those lovely big screens!)  The John Jones 2D prize, the Threadneedle Prize AND on top of that I have 3 paintings to finsh as well as 2 others planned.

What a few months it should be.  Busy, yes.  Nerve-racking, yes.  Disappointing, possibly.  Exciting, bloody hell yes!! 

One thing is for sure, I'm having a great time - I'm not sure which artist said it, possibly Francis Bacon, but it's so true; as long as you paint for yourself you will never be unhappy with your work.

Even if all of the prizes and awards bomb out, I'll still keep painting because I just love it!

So here's the finished piece, "The Only Way is Constable", I did dabble with a slightly more tongue-in-cheek title but decided it was a little bit too YBA for me.  And yes, I have vajazzled my painting - in the next post I'll go into the themes and ideas behind my "Essex" series....I'm sure the Essex girls and boys among you can already see where I'm going with this one!

Work in progress

Busy week and its only Tuesday!  So this post is going to be all about the piccies, so this is how my most recent piece from my "Essex" series is shaping up.....

New York, Neeeeeew Yooooooork!

So, it's getting quite exciting now, my work has been submitted for "Art Takes Times Square" which is an amazing exhibition - on the biggest scale.  Artists from all over the world have submitted work and it is up to members of the public, whose art gets selected to go into the exhibition event on June 18th.  If enough people select or "collect" our work then we get through to the event where our artwork will be shown in NYC baby!!! If our work gets thorugh to that then it may be selected by he judging panel to be shown on the big screens in Times Square.

This is the most awesome opportunity, I have stood in the middle of Times Square a couple of times in my life and the thought that my work could be on the screen is insane.  To be honest I would be totally chuffed to get through to the exhibition event on June 18th.  Excitingly enough I am getting close to it happening, I have already had my work collected by more people than I had ever expected!  Below is the link to my portfolio of work and if you reading this and have a few moments I would love you to follow the link and click "collect me" if you like what you see.  Come on people - help me to get through on this crazy thing!!

My link is http://EveBrinkley-Whittington.artistswanted.org/atts2012

Thanks all x