Patchings 2014 :St Cuthbert Mill

Setting up in St Cuthbert Mill Marquee

Patchings 2014

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this last week I  was at Patchings Art Festival 2014. This was my first year as a celebrity guest artist for St Cuthbert Mill  in the main marquee . On arrival, I briefly visited the main marquee to see where I would be giving my demonstration the next day and was immediately impressed by the size of the venue and the screen which gave everyone attending the opportunity to see clearly. I would be wearing a microphone so hearing would also not be a problem.  

A huge thank you to Bob and David for being so professional in guiding me through the technical procedure!

As this was my first year in the main marquee I did wonder how ticket sales would fare. However on Thursday tickets to see me had sold out in the first half an hour of opening and I was taken aback to hear artists had travelled from Barcelona, Thailand and Scotland to be in the audience.  Thank you! And a special mention, a thank you  to  Annie who also travelled down from Scotland just for the  demonstration and day at Patchings. Friday was exactly the same and it seemed even the bad weather on Saturday was not going to deter  watercolour enthusiasts from  attending.

 I set up in advance and talked to the wonderful St Cuthbert Mill team,  whose expertise is superb. When the audience was  allowed in I noted the seats were filled very quickly. Around three hundred people attended daily which was wonderful.

I decided to  demonstrate my techniques on a variety of subjects using my favourite colours and sharing why they  worked well for me in my style. I am often called " generous" in how I give information freely in my talks but my goal, truly, is for everyone to enjoy painting in watercolour as much as I do.  I loved sneaking in the " five minute rose" at the end of the second day demonstration. Knowing I only had eight minutes left for both questions and a final painting I decided to include my favourite subject, a rose. Sparks should have been flying off my brush as the  flower came to life with a few simple brushtrokes of carefully applied colour. Watercolour is magical and I am still on my journey into finding out exactly how I can make colour sing, to paint with a feeling of life and energy in my results and continue to grow as an artist.

I loved meeting everyone who I had a chance to talk to. My own marquee was continually full so time flew and before I knew it I was heading to Devizes where I had another event to attend on Saturday evening.  Tomorrow I head for London and I should be home on Wednesday.

For now I am sat reading really wonderful emails sent to me by artists who attended my demonstrations telling me how inspired they feel which was the whole point of my presentations.

My head is still spinning from all the excitement this week. Thank you to everyone who came to see my demonstrations, to everyone who came to see me in my own marquee, to those who bought and had my books signed, to friends who came especially to say Hello and most of all to Patchings for having me back and a special thank you to St Cuthbert Mill for inviting me to be a celebrity guest artist.

See you all again next year!

For full information on the fabulous paper I use , please see this link .

http://www.stcuthbertsmill.com/

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When my feet are finally back on  the ground I will be sharing more on my blog!