A Late Valentine...or six

I really wanted to post these on Valentine's Day, but I was just too pooped after the second day of this year's Greg Kerr painting course, 'The Dinner Party'. For our preparations over the last few months we had to design and make Valentine cards for five artists of our choosing, plus one for ourselves (how difficult was that!). It involved much research, reading, thinking and copying. We had to put in something of the artist, something of ourselves and something about Valentines. It was a very clever way to totally involve us in our chosen subjects - I was amazed at how Mr Bacon kept me awake at night! I went a bit overboard on the hearts, lace and flowers - but I thought if I'm going to do this I might as well go the whole hog. So without further ado, here are my tributes to Georgia, Wayne, Francis, Marc, Alice and me!

Georgia O'Keeffe

Wayne Thiebaud



Francis Bacon

Marc Chagall

Alice Neel and me

Happy Valentine's Day

Here is a beaded wire rose (I think it's a rose) for you. They are sold by craftsmen here on the side of the road in some of our suburbs around this time of year - my beloved gave this one to me last Valentine's Day - I drew it in my sketch journal but I got bored and irritated rendering all those beads, I won't be doing that again in a hurry - real roses are much more fun to paint!

Some of the local art-and-craftworks have improved so much over recent years. There are highly original minds at work, though if one person comes up with a great seller, it soon proliferates all over town. There is a life-size beaded warthog that I rather fancy, but where would one keep it?