The Story Behind 40 works that changed my career 13

Number 13-Evening Light From Battersea Bridge




This painting meant so much to me because before this competition came up I had never set up to paint in the Chelsea area. Sometimes we don't seem to appreciate the area where we live or work and always look out to travel or paint somewhere else. But when Heatherleys and The Cheyne Walk Trust decided to set up the competition and auction in aid of a Bursary for Students at Heatherley's I was forced to paint around my studio area. The brief was to capture any area around The Chelsea Riverside and Cheyne Walk area. I entered two paintings-One I did on site on a very grey and rainy day and this one which was painted from a picture of the Chelsea Riverside from Battersea Bridge. Both paintings sold at the exhibition and this one won the Best Work in the show! I was really delighted because a few months before that I had just won the Plein Air Prize at the Bath Prize and this one really fired me up! It was this competition that really fired me up to take on my famous "Bath Marathon in 2010"-Where I painted 212, 6" x 8" paintings of Bath in 4 months-something I still wonder up till today, how I managed to achieve! But there's something very contagious about success and confidence-both become springboards to reach higher heights!



Evening Light, From Battersea Bridge, 24" x 30", Oil on board, 2010.


The use of the digital Camera has become really important in developing some of these paintings. I learned so much from Karin Jurick, who goes around with a camera like a hunter! She comes back to the studio to produce some wonderful paintings-she always talks about not being a slave to the picture but being ready to use one's artistic shorthand to bring it to life!


Below are some pictures of the painting in progress and the award ceremony.



Receiving award from Prof. Ken Howard



Getting the mood, half way through the painting



Even though the quote below is about writing-it applies to painting too!

SPECIAL QUOTE
"So PUT IT OUT THERE. Send your work off to editors and agents as much as possible, show it to your neighbors, plaster it on the walls of the bus stops – just don’t sit on your work and suffocate it. At least try. And when the powers-that-be send you back your manuscript (and they will), take a deep breath and try again. I often hear people say, “I’m not good enough yet to be published.” That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren’t good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don’t pre-reject yourself. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest."-Elizabeth Gibert author of Eat, Pray, love