Saturday 30 October 2010

The Second Layer

Over Half Term, Hazel and I did a slow progress North, visiting some of our lovely family. I also worked on my painting TEA FOR 222. I was determined to get the layer of encaustic wax on the second painting and with the help of the trough and a hot knife, I suceeded. I then began the second, transparent layer, painting images of afternoon tea. At the moment I seem to be rubbing off more paint than I actually put on, but I guess I shall get ther in the end. I must finish by Christmas, so the painting can be framed while Ted Coney's Family Portraits is closed for the winter.

Monday 18 October 2010

Maybe, NO, But Maybe?

It all seemed to be going so well. First, the conservation officer had made encouraging signs about opening up the loft to the public. Then I saw a nice planning officer lady at the Council who sounded very enthusiastic about my ideas and said she could see no problems with it. My next stop was to ring the buildings regulations guy who had been so lovely when I set set up
Ted Coney's Family Portraits two years ago. Anyway, this is were the dream of turning our loft space into a gallery, ended!! It seems, for it to be allowed, I would, among other things have to fit a corridor into our living room (the best room in the house!) so visitors could get to the front door in case of a fire. This would be madness and make an 'only just big enough room', smaller.
I felt quite depressed for about an hour.And then I got to thinking, what if we eventually made the family of the front house an offer on the bottom flat? (it;s already divided into two flats anyway) It would stretch us financially (not another bloody morgage) but we could let out the part we didn't want, at least to start with. Anyway with those pleasant thoughts I went to sleep.

Friday 8 October 2010

No! No! But Maybe?

I've been trying to think of ways of extending the property, so Ted Coney's Family Portraits can grow as I do more paintings (hopefully, I've got at least another 30 years of painting to go!).
My plans have been thwarted this week by the news the Lavendar family have turned down my request to buy some extra land (to put my new studio) and the room under our flying freehold .
However, I have now started to explore the idea of using our loft space as an extra gallery.
The first news is encouraging. The Conservation Officer (the cottage is a listed building) has paid a visit and she had no problem with the idea. The next stage is from the Planning Officer and then see a structural engineer. I've always dreamt of having a spiral staircase, so maybe this is my chance?!

Saturday 2 October 2010

Suffering Over a Hot Stove - For Art

I've just spent three hours trying to skim encaustic wax over one of my canvases for my painting
'Tea for 222'. I used my new metal trough specially bought for the job and felt really prepared as I had experimented on a small canvas first. However, doing one of the real canvases proved much more difficult. It wasn't so much that I ran out of wax, as it set in the trough before I had time to complete the run. In the end I tried about ten times and as I had to keep reheating the wax, I got rather hot. I had almost given up when I had a brainwave. I had managed to cover most of the canvas but it looked an uneven mess, so I used a heated knife to smooth out the wrinkles. I had to clean it well afterwards because it belonged to Jasper, and he wanted his dinner.