Art Show Wrap-up.

I was very proud of those hand cut black arrows fastened to our posters to guide patrons to our Mostra (show). This chap doesn't look very interested. Probably not an art lover.

Since our exhibition coincided with Maggio Castiglionese, a month of music and cultural celebrations, we weren't the only show in town by a long shot.

Those who followed the arrows would have found us tucked away in a beautiful old 13th century restored convent in the middle of the Centro Storico (Historic Centre) of town.

The exhibition space is actually the studio where we meet every Wednesday afternoon to paint. Nails would not have been a good idea in these walls, so the paintings were displayed on easels and tables.



Above is our hostess and fellow artist, Miranda who has a very demanding day job, so the fact that she takes the time out each year to mount this show is greatly appreciated.

I showed five paintings, two oils and three watercolours. Amongst all the classical oil paintings, my dead fish was a bit of a show stopper!

And finally some of the artists. Yours Truly in the middle in need of Hair and Makeup.

The whole exercise was a lot of fun and a tremendous challenge for my Italian.

Two Americans who live across the valley read about the show on my blog and made a surprise visit. Thank you Martha & Benjamin.

My artist/writer friend Sally from Sydney happily happened to be visiting too, so all in all it was a wonderful memorable week but as far as art shows go, with such a lot of standing around waiting for someone to show up, I'd rather be painting!

Spring Beckons

Wildflowers in an Olive Grove - Nikon D40X

How can I justify sitting in my studio staring at my computer when it looks like this outside? Following a fine example by Making a Mark and Laurelines, this blog is going to take a short holiday - a week or two - hopefully to do some painting en plein air and some weeding in the garden.

Our art show is on for most of May and that is more demanding and tiring than I expected. A full report when it's all over.

Tulip Revival

Watercolour - 13 x 21cm HP Fabriano

I love a survival story. After I finished sketching my fallen tulip yesterday I was about to toss her in the compost. She was so limp, having been lying in the garden for ages and then on my desk in the hot sun for most of the day. Something made me pop her into the jar of water on my desk. This morning I found her bright and perky and ready to rock. Amazing.

I'm not as happy with this painting and I'm aware it has some awful anatomical errors but I thought the girl deserved another outing for sheer survival spirit.

Fallen Tulip

Fallen Tulip - 18 x 24cm Watercolour - Clairefontaine Sketchbook

One of the red tulips in the garden was broken off overnight so I put off the dreaded weeding to paint it this morning. It reminded me of a girl in a red satin dress who had danced too long at the ball and finally collapsed.

Red Shine Lily-flowered Tulips still standing

This is the first year I've planted tulips and I can't bring myself to cut them for the house or for art. I just take endless photographs when, in fact, I should be sketching and painting them.

I haven't been at all diligent about keeping up my Garden Journal sketchbook, but everything is photographed as it blooms. The other day I decided to start a new blog Our Tuscan Garden as a place to post these photos and tell the story of our experience making a garden in Tuscany.

I was very pleased that the title was available and very distressed when Blogger shortly after locked me out of my new blog. Days later the powers that be at Blogger have had time to check and have decided it isn't all spam.

The story begins at the beginning so it's going to take quite a few posts to bring our garden story up to the present day. I will continue to post my paintings from the garden here as well as on the other blog.

Now I really must get stuck into the weeding!

Old Japanese Design Book

I wandered down to the antique street market in the village this morning, looking for an old book to alter into a sketchbook. But instead I found a little treasure that I certainly won't be altering. Now I would be grateful if someone who reads Japanese could tell me exactly what this book is.



I was very taken with the traditional binding.


It has 264 pages of examples of Japanese graphic art, possibly ancient logos. Some look like they could be patterns for kimono designs. Anyway the notan is beautiful and I'm thinking that there are many patterns here I would like to try in linocut, perhaps for bookplates.


They remind me a lot of mandalas.

I can't find a date of publication (that I can read) but there is a light pencil message in the front that says
Showa 38 and the date 1963. Can anyone help?

My First Art Show

May is Festival Month in Castiglion Fiorentino - Maggio Castiglionese. My Wednesday afternoon oil painting group is putting on a show as part of the cultural activities.

Needless to say I'm pretty excited, since this is the first time I've exhibited.

Unfortunately my name doesn't fit any Italian spelling pattern, so when the proofs of the poster arrived I had become Robjn. The error was noted and now the final posters have been delivered. I'm now Robin Sinclaire! I think I preferred Robjn.

Possibly I'm a victim of Botticelli's Curse. Has the master taken offence at my copy of his Primavera?

They're nice big posters.

Dog with Opposable Thumb

Click to read captions

It was bound to happen! Dermott, our Old English Sheepdog, seems to have grown an opposable thumb. This is because there was a personal request, via a comment from Katherine of Making a Mark , for Dermott to reply to my cartoon - A Day in My Life - in which Dermott seems to think he was short changed (or big bummed, more likely).

Anyway he just slapped this sketch (above) on my desk. It seems he would do anything for Katherine, which may have something to do with the fact that she gave him a special award in her annual Making a Mark Awards (MAMA) for 2007.