SHOW TIME

Well It's been nearly a month since my collaboration and first UK showing with Warwick Studios Gallery and the first opportunity to sit down and write this well over due blog. Now if you have been reading the few posts I have been making throughout the year you will have seen some of the things I've been getting up to and a few of the early releases of some of the originals for the show but this is whats been happening.

In January David at Warwick Studios asked me if I would be interested in having a show with him at the gallery, I accepted and got to work on 12 large original oil paintings and 12 original study sketches , I knew that with each piece taking anything from 3-4 weeks to complete I would have to cram potentially 12 months comfortable work into 10 months hard slog to hit the agreed November deadline, I knew in order to get this done I would need to be super organised and extremely dedicated and so I worked tirelessly making sure that each piece was done with as much love and passion as the next trying never to get complaisant or let standards slip and 10 months later during the late part of October I had completed all 24 originals.

Now I usually like to go into details in my blogs about individual pieces and explain what triumphs and tests I have had during the process. But in all honesty the pieces for the show, because of the nature of doing them back to back to back without being able to post about them or share them on social media became somewhat of a complete blur, but what I can remember about a few of the pieces is this..."Fingers in the Sweetie Jar" took me the longest and towards the end of the process had lost my patience with it but was happy with the end result...."Love is on the cards" was one of my personal favourites especially as it was the first piece of mine that had double meaning...."My last Rolo" was a challenge as I had never tackled tin foil before but I think I handled it well and I always had a soft spot for this piece as it was the main feature in my promotional video for the show..."Colmans" required 3-4 layers of yellow paint to get it looking right....."Cola Crush 2" really tested me so much so that I almost didn't put in the reflections but was so pleased I talked myself into doing them as I felt it really made the piece...."Chutney and Cheese"...first time painting bread and I had to use a block of real cheese to match the right colour....."Fish Supper and Sarsons"....really liked painting this piece and enjoyed eating the composition :-)......"Chips, Cone and Ketchup"...by far my favorite piece to paint, big, bold, great lighting, and I loved the composition..."Guilty Pleasures" inspired by a UK seaside holiday I had with the family in August, I thought this piece would be easy to paint until I started to do the wafer cones and realised just how fiddly painting the little squares was.

But that i'm afraid is about all I can remember. Just know there were lots of testing times but a lot of successes, a huge amount of work and a huge weight lifted when I hit the deadline.

I had all pieces picked up by a great fine arts delivery man called Andrew Shrives who always looks after my work and had them sent for framing. Once framed, David had them returned to the gallery ready for the hanging, but picture this for me if you will. Its Friday night the next day is the show. Im feeling a little rough with a cold and David is trying to hang 24 pieces in the gallery. I get a message from David at 7pm telling me that the pieces had bent his rail as they were to heavy (I paint on wooden panel and once framed especially if there large can be quite heavy) his fridge in the gallery had broken and water had run everywhere, one of the posters had been accidentally thrown out with the trash and he had hurt his back!! As you can imagine I was pretty panicked 10 months hard work was now in the balance and was looking like it might not even happen, but David pulled it off and we were back in action.

It was now Saturday morning and as you can imagine I was feeling the nerves of excitement and also the feelings of worry and doubt. Now anyone that has ever produced anything personal that has been created and put out for the public to judge, whether it be a Poem, a book, a song or in my case art work they will all know that thought that pops into your head....will people like what I'm doing?

My appearance at the gallery was between 1 and 4 and so I decided to get there a little earlier to have some lunch before hand...12:30 arrived and I'm just enjoying my lunch when David calls me and asked if I'm nearly at the gallery, I explained that I was just having my lunch and was only minutes away, he then told me that people had come early to see the show and that it might be a good idea to get to the gallery as soon as I could and so I stuffed my face as quickly as I could and got myself to the gallery. I arrived and was blown away by the way that David had hung the work, on a lovely slick black wall all framed and looking beautiful together and people already admiring the works. I got chatting to a lovely bloke who had taken a liking to Cola Crush 2 and after a brief conversation with me decided that he must have that piece and brought it there and then, I felt chuffed and remember thinking to myself "Brilliant at least one had sold"....then it went manic. as collectors from all over the country from London to Manchester and everywhere in between came to view my work, I literally would be speaking to one person discussing the work then I would turn to find someone else who wanted to talk It was amazing to say the least. One and a half hours went by and I looked up from talking to see a sea of red stickers....in 1.5 hours I had sold 23 of my works and I was blown away!!!

I met some lovely collectors from the old to the new that day and I just wanted to say a Huge thank you to all who came on the day to support me in my work,, you all know it really does mean a lot to me and without your support it would make it very difficult for me to carry on. I want to say a big thank you to David Sands for doing an incredible job, my family for there every growing support and lastly to my wife and kids who have always stood by me throughout all the late nights early hours and long weekends without me being there, I'm just so pleased its been worth all the hard work.