Like Hot Cakes

Since showing  preliminary studies  which are for sale, from my website, I have managed to sell five canvases out of the nine, displayed.
 They don't make masses of money (as if!) but people do seem to like the real thing, even though they are just little experiments, in which I am trying to work out what to do next.
To see what is still available, go to Ted Coney's Family Portraits
and click on the NEWS AND REVIEWS page, where there is a link to the paintings.
When I finish my current picture, 'Bicycle Thieves' later this year, there will be another seven studies to add to the list.

Eel Trap - In Wales

Whilst visiting Wales the other week we stayed with some friends in a remote farm house. I hadn't met Hilary's partner, Nick, before but it turned out that he had lived in the Fens and done some work on the Ouse Washes. As a gift when he left, someone had given him an eel trap.
I spied this quite rare object in the barn  and decided to make a drawing of it.
I was especially interested in the trap because for my next painting (or next but one, we'll see how it goes) I want to show how Leo has gone to live in New Zealand and I worry about him not making it back to the UK.
Whilst visiting New Zealand last year I made a drawing of an eel trap there, as I was intrigued to see that Ely's fishermen weren't the only ones to use them.
I realise that our eels don't come from that part of the world, but artist's licence will allow me to use them as a symbol  for being trapped.

French Connection

When I first conceived the idea of Ted Coney's Family Portraits eight years ago, I had the notion of doing three tours a day, with a fifteen minute break between each one.
That very quickly morphed into the model I use today, which is giving one tour only and letting the visitors have as much time as they need to look around and ask questions (and sometimes buy a postcard or tour guide!)
However, on the hottest day of the year so far, I agreed to give three tours to a group of French teenagers, yesterday. As they were rotating between me, The Babylon Gallery and Waterside Antiques, I think they were as exhausted as I was by the end. We started at 2pm and finished at 5pm.
Did they enjoy it? Well I guess, as much as any young person could in the circumstances, given that they would rather have been beside a pool.

Remembering The Somme

We've just been on holiday to Somerset, Devon and Wales. Whilst there, we visited Exeter and saw a very moving piece of artwork which was laid out in the Northernhay Gardens.
The installation commemorated the Battle of the Somme. The artist had represented each of the 19,240 soldiers who died on the first day of engagement, as a plastic doll covered in a white shroud.
All the figures were laid out in straight lines on the grass, which made for a very powerful image.
It really brought  home to me, how many families had lost sons, brothers, husbands and fathers on a single July day, a hundred years ago.