Preparing For AFAS

The Armed Forces Art Society (AFAS) show each summer in the Mall Galleries is a 'must' for me and especially as I, our Chairman John Ashton and my fellow member Katie Tunn  run the new contemporary show alongside the regular one.  We are still finding our way with the new show and it will be interesting to see how it develops.  I am hoping to put two works into it, both based on poems by Pauline Stainer: 'The Wound-dresser's Dream' and 'The Ice-pilot Speaks'.  They involve an awful lot of gold leaf.  I am waiting for her to 'give me the nod ' before I go ahead.  If she is happy about it I will post the images before the show starts.

In the regular show I am submitting my full quota: 6 works, 5 oils and one pastel.  First there is a big Venice picture, based on one I did on site in November 2012:

Winter Afternoon on the Grand Canal (20x24 inches)

It is the biggest thing I have done for a while.  Then I have worked up a larger version of one that I did on the Seville trip:

Roses in the Alcazar, Seville (20x12 inches)

Next a little 12x8 done on the spot in Seville:

The Alcazar Tank, Seville (12x8 inches)

The pastel is quite a large one of the Botanic Gardens, Bath.  This is it before framing.  You can see that I have worked from a dark base:

In The Botanic Garden, Bath (pastel)

Then there is one that I was persuaded to include by my wife and main critic.  It is of a snow angel that the Beckley children built above our toboggan slope last year.  I froze painting it.

The Snow Angel, Beckley (10x10 inches)

It's funny but sometimes this sort of picture appeals when others I think are far more appealing don't - you can never tell!

Finally there is a tiny sketch of the Covered Market in Oxford:

Covered Market, Oxford (9x7 inches)

Well, we shall see if any of these are sold!  We had a difficult year last year with the Olympics.  They  prevented the gallery from operating normally and effectively shut out some works (eg heavy sculpture) because access from the Mall was blocked.  I was lucky and sold 2 of my pieces.  This year we should do a lot better all round but you can bet that Murphy's Law will apply to me and I won't sell a thing!  It is such a lottery that I sometimes wonder why artists put themselves through it but the fact is that we just go on trying again and again.  Madness but I would rather be mad than not paint.

The Show is on from Monday 15 July to Saturday 20 July.  Here are the flyers for the main show and also for the contemporary one that we call 'out of Line':

And this is how to get to both shows:

Do come if you can - it's all free and the range of work is very wide, due in part to the new show that allows members who find it difficult to be selected for the main show to exhibit something a little different.