It's Finished!

Yes, it's finally finished. My painting 'Another Year' that is. I've been painting it from 24th February - 13th October and started making preliminary sketches and taking photographs of Ely Cathedral from the previous June. Nigel from UKPHOTOGALLERY came to take pictures of it yesterday, with a view to adding it to prints of my work for sale on his website. You can now see the final version on the NEWS AND REVIEWS page of  Ted Coney's Family Portraits website, though it will move to my new PRINTS FOR SALE page, once Daniel has got it up and running.
I had the mad notion that I might ask the Dean and Chapter if they would like to exhibit the painting for a while next year, in return for a portion of the money raised from each print sold, going to the Cathedral.
The painting is about birth and death after all, and although it is not  a traditional view of the building, it does (dare I say it?) maybe use the structure in a different way. In the meantime, you can still see the painting here on Waterside, until I close on 25th November.

Fools Gold ?

I  decided to do my  'Puppets and Dolls' tour, when I opened Ted Coney's Family Porraits last weekend. This was for one of my most loyal visitors, who had already been twice before. I knew she would be interested in this one, as she is an artist herself and often weaves interesting stories into her fabric artworks. At the last minute another couple arrived who had not booked and although it was nice to see them, it threw me slightly. One of the paintings on the tour is 'Fools Gold' - a sad tale about some relatives of my mothers, but one which is difficult to tell. As I used the dolls house, which is on display, it seemed a pity not to include it, but more arkward when you are not sure how people will react. Anyway I went for it - they did write 'beautiful storytelling paintings', so hopefully they wern't to shocked.

Popping Up And Down

I've been looking at my diary and there are not many Sundays left before I close
Ted Coney's Family Portraits for the winter. Only five infact, though I could also do the odd Saturday as well if anyone asked me. The beauty of being a pop-up gallery is I can be a bit flexible.
My last tour will be on 25th November though and then I will be starting as artist in residence at Primavera Gallery in Magdalene Street, Cambridge on Fridays from 7th December. Still alot to do before I start, but gradually getting organised. My two new canvases have been ordered, my experiments of how I am going to paint them continue and one of my other works ' Walking Sticks ' is being reframed to diplay in the gallery. I am also hoping to get my current work ' Another Year' put on a laptop, so I can show from begining to end, how one of my paintings have been put together (you can see this on my website - nearly finished).

Another Year, Another Day.

Have been trying to resolve all the problems with the outer edge of my painting 'Another Year', during the last few weeks. Daniel has posted some of them on the News and Reviews page of my website but have taken more photos of my struggles, since then, which you will see later.
I had wanted to paint tiny marks of dappled light near the top of the painting, which I had recorded in the Cathedral at different time of day. However, in my painting they just looked odd and raher fussy, so I got rid of them. Now I am trying glazes of transparent colour, which seemed to go well until I tryed to rub them back too enthusiasticly. Only the little daps of colour I had erased earlier started to show through, but not in a good way. Will try again tomorrow when the paint is dry

An Ironic Snow Angel

You can finally start to order prints of my paintings and drawings from UKPhoto Gallery again. Although the website isn't up yet and running yet, Nigel has started to print the work. I signed a copy of one canvas from the series, 'Snow Angels and No Angels' the other day for my sister-in-law Julia, who wanted the painting which had been named after her. (There are fifteen paintings, each one named after a different female member of the family). I used the image of the snow angel, (which I saw as a negative image, as the snow is  removed) in different ways but for Julia it symbolised the fact that she was estranged from us for over twenty years. Happily she is back with us now, but it did seem ironic that she wanted a copy. Maybe she liked the passion flower, which is the other image in the painting.
(The whole set of paintings can be seen on the Home page of my website www.tedconeysfamilyportraits.co.ukwww.tedconeysfamilyportraits.co.uk)

Shed A Tear For Richard

Last weekend  a french family visited Ted Coney's Family Portraits. While I was showing them my painting ' In Three Our Kingdom ' I started to explain the significance of the empty plate on the table. The story behind the painting was about my mother, who summoned her three sons and instructed them to start dividing up all her possessions, as she had decided to go and live in sheltered accommodation. As we all went for a meal first, I used the image of the table in the painting, to show how we divided up these objects, like portions of food . Only my eldest brother, Richard kept refusing to have anything when it was his turn to choose - hence the empty plate. Only, he didn't need any possessions, as although none of us guessed it at the time, within six months, he would be dead. At this point in my tour, one of my guests seemed so moved, she started to cry, which I am not sure is a good or bad thing! She was laughing later, so hopefully the experience wasn't too traumatic.

Hanging In The Balance

Last night I was the guest speaker of a local rotary club and my topic was ofcourse,
 Ted Coney's Family Portraits. After an excellant meal with lots of wine I gave a short impromtu speech to an all male audience. I chose to start with my tale about the Morris in the Cathedral (you can see the pictures on my Facebook page) because I thought it might interest them. My only visual aid was my flyers which I handed around at the begining. The image on them is my painting 'Diamonds' which is partly seen through my keyhole loggo. I remined them  that anyone over sixty (like me) might remember the character 'Mr Turnip' from early T.V. which appears in the painting to repreent my childhood. After my talk one man came up to me and said he could never visit as the sight of seeing Mr Turnip hanging (his upper body was hidden by the keyhole) upset him too much. I tried to explain that it was only a marionette and in the painting he appeared to be floating (admittedly I had decided to omit the strings) but he wouldn't be placated. He seemed genuinely disturbed by it, reminding one of how an image can affect people in different ways..