The Dutchoils April 2013 painting newsletter

Welcome to the April ’13 Dutchoils newsletter!
Much to report in this month’s newsletter: the upcoming Richmond ARThouse Open Studios Festival, the recent sale of four still life and wildlife paintings, and I’m excited to now have art prints and greeting cards available thanks to my new Canon MG8250 printer. This month I’ll also be screen printing to try and produce beautiful textiles for the kitchen & home and I’ll be sketching at Kew Gardens.
A special offer is included at the bottom of this newsletter!

ARThouse Open Studios Festival, Richmond:
21-23 and 28-30 June

http://dutchoils.com/arthouse-open-studios/

http://www.richmond.gov.uk/arthouse_open_studios
(Information on participating artists and the festival brochure will be available on this site early May)

This Open Studios Festival is an exciting opportunity for artists to open their homes, studios, classrooms and gardens and showcase a wide range of artwork created in the local area to the public. It is an annual event; apparently 2012 was the biggest festival yet with over 80 individual artists, 12 artist and community groups and 7 schools. I believe that 90 artists will be taking part this June.
This year's Open Studios will take place over two weekends in June: 21 - 23 and 28 - 30 June in venues across the whole borough of Richmond. I’ll open up our conservatory and garden and my paintings, drawings, art prints and cards will be for sale. I also hope to have screen printed homeware available. There will be tea and biscuits and also some great discounts! Check my ARThouse page for info on visiting times or contact me.
The festival kicks off with a group exhibition from 1 June – 27 July at the Riverside Gallery in Richmond town centre. It will be an ideal opportunity for a sneak peek at what everyone has to offer, so pop by for a glass of wine during that first week.

Latest paintings sold
I’m delighted to report that I sold two more paintings through Suzie of Hill Rise Framers & Gallery in Richmond: “Still life with cherry tomatoes and blue cheese” and a painting of a puffin. Both paintings are oil on linen and had been on display in Suzie’s window. They were sold for £250 each. Well done, Suzie!
I also sold two paintings at the latest Twickenham Art Circle exhibition (11-14 April): "Winter bird" (framed, £100) and "Still life with plums" (unframed, £150). Was delighted to see that my greeting cards and mounted art prints were popular as well; three prints were sold at £25 each. To me this indicates that people like to take away an affordable piece, rather than having to spend more money on a painting. As always the art group did well during this spring exhibition in Twickenham; a big thank-you to the organising committee.

New! Art prints and greeting cards
My husband gave me a shiny new Canon PIXMA MG8250 printer for Christmas and I can now offer reproductions of any of my pieces. The MG8250 printer produces high-quality prints; I use heavyweight (350 gsm) Hahnemuhle fine art paper, which has a warm, natural white colour and a traditional etching paper surface structure. Greeting cards are blank inside with the image printed on the glossy outside, which is an archival photo surface. The Canon pigment inks are part of the Chroma Life100 system so reproductions will last for a long time. Please contact me if you’re interested in prints (typically £25-30) and cards (£2.50; also available in multi-packs). Prints can be delivered in suitable mounts and cards come with a C6 white envelope wrapped in cellophane. Cards and prints will also be available to buy through my shop page (Paypal). Free P&P!

Screen printing kitchen & homeware
If I may say so myself, my botanical work would look nice on textiles for the home. Since I like the craft-like quality of hand-printed cloth, I have bought screen printing equipment and will be using a photographic emulsion method which allows me to print fine line and halftones. The plan is to initially produce tea towels, napkins and aprons featuring fruit, vegetables and flowers.

 

Sketching at Kew Gardens
Now I have a wonderful new baby to look after, I’ll wheel him to the Palm House at Kew Gardens this month to produce some new botanical work. Some of this will then be screen printed onto textiles for the kitchen & home. Keep an eye on my blog (www.dutchoils.com/painters-blog) for progress!

Upcoming exhibitions
11 May: Richmond May Fair - in the Richmond Arts tent!
17–19 May: Richmond Art Society, Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington
21–30 June : ARThouse Open Studios Festival, Richmond
1 June–27 July : ARThouse group exhibition, Riverside Gallery, Richmond
10 June – 10 August : Llewellyn Alexander Gallery, Waterloo, London

Offer of the month (2 months, really)
For the months of April and May 2013, I’ve reduced the price of a mounted art print to £20; please contact me with the artwork of your choice (pick from www.dutchoils.com). Free P&P!

Contact
contact page
Keep an eye on updates: www.dutchoils.com
Twitter: twitter.com/Dutchoils
Facebook: www.facebook.com/tanja.moderscheim.dutchoils

A new still life painting

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Trying my luck

Yesterday I dropped off two paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts at Piccadilly in central London, hoping I’ll be allowed to participate in the RA Summer Exhibition. This is an exhibition open to anyone and has been held every year since 1769, without exception. Around 10,000 works (including paintings, sculpture, photography, film) representing some 5,000 artists are entered each year, of which around 1000 pieces are selected.

Now, 242 years after the first Summer Exhibition, I decided to be bold and submit my paintings. Considering that great artists such as JMW Turner and Thomas Gainsborough participated in this very exhibition in the past, it would be an honour just to be accepted. So off I went, having wrapped two paintings in a combined 10 meters of bubble wrap.
Fortunately I managed to fit the fairly large paintings (the largest is just short of a meter) into my car and, to avoid the congestion charge of central London I parked near a tube station and dragged the paintings into the Piccadilly line. The rain, when poking my head above ground at Green Park station, was not much of a problem as the bubble wrap protected my paintings nicely.

Living just outside London I noticed that I had missed the hustle and bustle of central London, black London taxis and people in suits running about Piccadilly and the curved stately architecture of Regent Street. The rain made everything look silvery black and sleek. Looking around I spotted other people carrying paintings, hurrying along to the east entrance of the Royal Academy. They seemed to be wearing blinkers, jogging nervously, almost pushing their way through to get their precious paintings to the drop off point in time (which was funny since the deadline for submission was still one and a half days away).

On my way through Burlington Arcade I ended up chatting to a man who had travelled from outside London to submit his abstract painting. He was wearing the most fantastic green/pink knitted hat. While queuing at the east entrance, I told me that he had submitted a painting two years ago which had been rejected. I wonder how many of us in the queue would be disappointed this year; it probably best to expect to be rejected. Interestingly, at that point flyers were being handed out inviting us to submit our works to an on-line gallery if the RA says NO! ... Keeping our spirits up, we made jokes about the great JMW Turner possibly queuing up right here for the 1790 Summer Exhibition, while shuffling along below statues of the royal academicians Linnaeus and Galileo.

Not much later we entered the submission hall, which resembled an ants' nest and was packed with wanna-be artists like us, unwrapping their paintings. RA staff then scanned each piece and the art handlers took the works away. And, just like that, we found ourselves outside again.

The RA will complete their selection at the end of May. Fingers crossed...!