The sun is shining, the magnolia tree is in full bloom… A blog from ‘Lockdown’.

‘Prayer Flags For The World’

What surreal times we are living in! It is Good Friday today, but there are no church services. The sun is shining, but we are only allowed out in our gardens or for an hour to exercise or to shop. Out in the sun it feels quite surreal that the news is of more people infected and more people dead. The brave people working in health services in particular are risking their lives for us while many of us at home doing our best to stop the spread. There are so many repercussions of this.

One that art lovers may not be so aware of is the effect upon artists. Many artists, like me, are self employed. We are largely dependent on the income from sale of work and teaching. Right now the bricks and mortar galleries are closed, art fairs are cancelled and we cannot run our usual activities.

I closed down my regular oil painting classes three weeks ago. I have no idea when they can restart, likewise I have workshops advertised for April, May, June and July. Right now I can only hope that at least some of these will run.

I have work still on exhibition but under lockdown at Castle Park Arts Centre, as part of the Peak District Artisans exhibition there. This exhibition will be available for viewing if the Arts Centre is able to reopen as they have extended our run until 23rd June. If and when this happens I will let you know. Above is ‘Celtic Seas’ one of my paintings in the exhibition at Castle Park.

So like so many artists and other people at the moment I have no income. I am trying to use my time to be creative still. Most of this is drawings. Some about the crisis. See for example my ‘Prayer Flags for the World’ drawing now in the ‘Works on Paper’ section of this website.

I am taking part in two initiatives.

Artists Pledge

One is the Artists Pledgehttps://news.artnet.com/art-world/artist-support-pledge-instagram-1807881

This initiative, started by artist Mathew Bourne, allows us artists to support one another. Each artist should put up for sale art that is priced at two hundred pounds or less ($230) plus shipping. For every thousand pounds raised in sales the artist pledges to buy another artist’s work in the same price range. So with this in mind every day I will post on instagram and also do a blog post about an art work of mine that I prepared to sell for this reduced price but only while the lockdown continues. There will be some real bargains to be had.

The first one to go up for this pledge is ‘Trees At Les Bois’. This lovely painting is 50cm x 50cm, oil on canvas. See below. I am also offering free shipping within the UK – so this is a huge deal. You can now buy this online at this price.

YourArtCards – Feed An Artist Buy A Card

I have also become part of a website called ‘YourArtCards https://yourartcards.co.uk/. This website is a wonderful resource for buying cards on line, it not only enables a purchaser to buy a particular artist’s cards but also to buy a mixture of cards. Ensuring that you have cards for every occasion. If you do not have stamps, in the UK, they can also supply books of second class stamps.

YourArtCards will soon also be selling artists prints. So why not have a browse.