For the love of ADD by Ali Hargreaves

The very beginning of ADD ~ Zoom meetings

When I was asked by Ali Board if I’d like to join a small group of artists to support each other at the beginning of the Pandemic …I was full of emotions. Firstly what a kind hearted lady to set this up with Matthew Palmer. I felt warm. I felt deeply honoured and humbled to have be asked as I was probably the least known of us! Also a little scared of meeting these well known and much loved artists!

We had our first Zoom meeting ..which meant having to get to grips with another bit of technology. Little did I know that there would be a huge amount of extra learning about technology to come… and an incredibly steep learning curve ahead of me. To be honest I am better much more proficient at climbing steep mountains and crags than technology curves!

I was quiet in the first Zoom meeting as I still felt quite shy and a bit in awe of these amazing people …but I listened to everything everyone was saying. We were all in shock as were the whole Nation. As we all had our own Art businesses and we were all going through the same thing…. all very worried that our businesses might go down the plug hole. All of us had worked so hard to get them off the ground and this could have been devastating. Equally, it was so good to know I wasn’t alone. …and we all sympathised with each other.

After a week of reflection..we had another Zoom meeting and all of us brought a lot of positive thoughts to the meeting. We started discussing how we could help our students and other artist out there. We wanted to support others as well as ourselves and so the pan to prepare and demonstrate Live. The technology side scared me to death! But again, my ADD team mates supported and encouraged each other. I have to say there were two camps…those who were incredibly tech savvy ..and those of us who weren’t! I’m not going to tell you who they were but you can probably guess!

Our Zoom meetings were weekly throughout the Pandemic and fast track friendships grew.

The launch of ADD ~ Live workshops

And so the Live demo’s began over a Bank holiday weekend and they were well attended. We were all quite nervous but excited at the same time. We loved supporting each other on each demo (and the fact that we were supported by each other) We had lots of tech issues and Gremlins to sort out etc. I remember Sharon’s equipment falling apart and how she just carried on calmly regardless. I remember Jeremy having his video upside down….and the same happened to me one time where I need up working in a contorted and twisted position the whole way through. Matthew lost all connection on one of his demos’ and thunder storms wreaked havoc one weekend. Leading up to that Ali set up the ADD Facebook page.   

We were quite overwhelmed by how many people we had reached! (An average of 3000 viewers at the height of the pandemic) As a result, we decided we should have a website and so that was born.

Collaborative work

We worked on a collaborative project painting a street of houses and each of us added a house….videoing our painting of it. It was one of my whacky ideas!  This involved painting our bit and then carefully packaging it up and sending it on to the next artist in the post! This can still be seen on our Artist Demo Days website (https://www.artistdemodays.co.uk/collaboration ) I loved the fact that it reflected our personalities.

This made me want to make special Christmas cards for the team…so I turned then all into robins. It started as one painting then I cut them up and sent individually. Everyone sent something special to each other that year. We had become good friends.

We can be recognised by our various individual painting and teaching styles, and also by our love of certain colours, love of biscuits, love of getting our hands messy, love of cheeky banter, love of imaginative ideas, love of thinking outside the box, and much, much more.

We all worked together in another team effort “singing” the twelve days of Christmas. We had such a laugh putting that together. As many of you know we sent it again in 2021. I expect it will be out again in December 2022. It has become a tradition.

The uniting of ADD ~ Get togethers

Eventually, the Government relaxed Covid rules a little. This enabled Ali B, Sharon and Denise to get together in Norfolk. Me and the boys (being the Northerners) couldn’t join them as our end of the country was still in lockdown. To say I was disappointed is an understatement! We had planned it for months.

However, we planned another one for November 2021 and we all made it apart from our busy Ali B and was of course sadly missed.

We had a great time visiting a sculpture park, taking photos, sketching, laughing loads, being filmed as part of Travelling Brush Dippers, painting and enjoying lots of refreshments together.

Meanwhile a few of us managed to visit each other individually and even surprise others by doing the Zoom meetings together! These ranged from day visits to week-long holidays! I think this is a remarkable achievement when you think of the miles between us.

The forming of ADDicts ~ Facebook page

It was Sharon who suggested we set up a Facebook group for our supportive followers who were fast becoming friends by chatting through the workshops. This again has been very successful with lots of people sharing their work and stories. We really believe we have a little family here and we love seeing the group thrive.

Patchings

Initiated by Jeremy we have been plotting and planning for many months to be at Patchings in Nottinghamshire.

Now we will finally all be together working as the Dream Team at Patchings 2022. Four whole days to enjoy each other’s company. To support each other’s workshops for real and hopefully meet lots of our ADDicts.

We cannot wait to see and work alongside each other ..and we can’t wait to see our supporters!

Moving forward in 2021

All of us on Artist Demo Days want to thank you all for your incredible and lovely support during the Covid pandemic which has been invaluable. It has been a delight to “meet” and interact with so many of you during our demonstrations and we feel there has been a very special bond created between us all.

As we move forward towards hopefully greater freedoms our work circumstances are changing and we are becoming increasingly busy with our individual work and teaching. Consequently, whilst we hope to continue to utilise and support ADD and ADDicts this will inevitably be in a greatly reduced capacity as we try and balance our responsibilities. We hope you will understand and appreciate that therefore it is difficult to plan new ADD events as we had done week by week during our period of individual isolation, as we had much more time available during that period.

We would still like to be able to give occasional demonstrations, recordings, as well as other articles of interest from time to time but these will have to be on an irregular basis going into the future. We would suggest that you may like to keep a look out on the ADD Page as we will be offering something every month, be it a new demo or a video etc. and you will of course be seeing our new work and regular Posts as normal. (You can’t get rid of us that easily!) It may be that you get one of us a bit more more than another, but we hope that each of us may from time to time post helpful contributions for our mutual benefit.

It is our wish that what has been so wonderfully creative will not be lost but may evolve as our circumstances change and we adapt to meet them.

Your ADD team

Moving Thoughts by Jeremy Ford.

Time to say goodbye to this old house that I’ve loved these past thirty years.

When we moved in here in 1991 I had a room at the front of the house with north light which is best because you don’t get any sunlight falling across you or your work, meaning that you have virtually constantly even light all day. That room where I created some of my best work was my studio for twenty years until I had a studio built over our garage down the drive. It’s said that every man should have a shed, somewhere to escape to on his own and I’ve absolutely loved working in my studio, not actually a “shed” but a haven of creativity overlooking the fields at the edge of our village. From my studio not only can I watch the sun go down in the west, I can also look back at the front of the house and see anyone approaching and unless they turn round and look up, they can’t see me.

In 2019 we decided we wanted to downsize as all our children had grown up, left and settled locally. We sold in early 2020 and as I write this in May of the same year we’re still waiting to move to nearby Pontefract. They say that the plague has made everything so much harder and slower and I understand that, but the waiting is driving me crazy! Virtually everything is packed up and ready to go, including all my art equipment. My studio isn’t very big but it’s taken me weeks and weeks to sort everything out for keeping or chucking away. I’ve found all kinds of paintings done since I was an art student, right through my professional career as an illustrator to the present day. There are hundreds and hundreds of paintings, unmounted, mounted, and framed. Normally I would hire the village hall and have a weekend art sale, but the pestilence has put paid to that for now.

Now my studio is eerily quiet, forlorn, and almost empty, apart from the boxed up equipment, bags and folders of over thirty years of accumulated stuff.

The bungalow we’re moving to needs a lot doing to it, extension work too, so I doubt if we’ll be straight for a good year or so yet. First on my priority list though is building a studio, and I’ve drawn up so many designs for it being situated at the back of the property to make best use of the space that there is. I’ve looked at numerous garden offices/studios and most of the companies who build them haven’t replied to my enquiries so I guess they must be very busy building everyone else’s spaces now that more people have discovered working from home! A good friend of ours is an interior designer https://www.facebook.com/Vision2Fruition-104481935010848/ and she’s planned some excellent visual plans of how it might look eventually.

All this is of course going to take some time, so until it’s built I’ll have to use whatever available space amongst the chaos there is in the house!

As all my art stuff is packed away ready to go, I’m getting restless and twitchy because I need to paint regularly. I’m getting withdrawal symptoms now and I can’t wait to be able to set up somewhere properly and get on with the myriad of paintings I want to do as well as recommence my Zoom painting workshops, one of the good things to come out of Covid!

The other day, the SAA emailed and asked me if I could do a workshop at HQ in July which will be online until it’s safer to host attended workshops. I have many, many pictures and reference photographs, but hardly anything I hadn’t already used that would be appropriate for a two-hour workshop. Eventually I took an idea from a photograph a friend took and thought I could develop it and simplify it to use as my subject.

So… now… where are my pastels? Where is my Pastelmat paper? Where are all the other bits and pieces I need to create the painting?! Well, bit by bit they were gradually tracked down, boxes rumpaged, and fished out for use once again. I found a collapsible table and set up as best I could to create a new painted world in pastel. Joy of joys, bliss! This is food and drink to me, the air that I breathe. It went surprisingly well which I wasn’t entirely expecting as a gap in creativity can diminish my powers of expression and confidence. After a few hours it was complete and then I had to pack all my things away once again! This reinforced my view that to be creative it’s important to have actual space dedicated for that, otherwise the prospect of getting everything out only to have to put it all away afterwards can discourage the best of intentions. If I have a spare hour I’m more likely to paint if everything is permanently set up for me and all I have to do is go there and get cracking.

I’m not one for writing blogs really as I seldom seem to have the time to write something that might not be of much interest to others anyway. One thing these lockdowns have given us is more time to appreciate what we had that we could no longer have; simple things like seeing friends and family, celebrating with others and meeting for a chat and a drink. Good things have materialised such as Artist Demo Days on Facebook, the community of the Facebook “ADDicts” and the opportunity of each of us contributing for the benefit of our own sanity as well as the sanity of others.

Now the latest lockdown is easing and greater freedoms may be enjoyed, I for one am so looking forward so much to seeing family and friends again, now the waiting is almost over.

We’re now optimistic about being able to move house within the next couple of weeks, so this waiting is almost over too. When the studio and house are left empty and the keys are handed over to the new occupants a new adventure will start.

As it says on a little plaque on a bench in the garden of our next home: “Don’t be sad it’s over, be glad it happened.”

Painting plein air. Why do I love it? By Denise Allen

Painting plein air is a challenge and a pleasure. When creating a painting from being there, there are lots of things that can greatly add to the work. You will feel the weather, and possibly battle the elements. You will have to make choices about what you are going to paint. You will have to set up your equipment. It takes work. But the payoff is that the work you create will have a freshness that is hard to achieve in the studio.

Before you go out for the first time to paint, have a practice at home setting up your equipment. You will probably find there are things you don’t need. My kit will now fit easily into a tote bag. I take a small selection of paints. At a minimum, just 3 colours in watercolour. I often paint plein air in acrylic, but I am going to concentrate on watercolour for this post. 3 brushes, My 30mm flat brush, a large and a small round. A water pot, a rag and a bottle of water. My folding palette: having a folding palette means I am less likely to get paint everywhere when travelling. A sketch book and pencil. I have a collapsible tripod, and a board that will attach to it. I will take a couple of pieces of paper with me, and a roll of tape to attach it to the board. Other things I take are some music or an audiobook on my phone, and drink and maybe some food. I also take a folding chair, but I try to find somewhere that has a bench… one less thing to carry. You will also need to dress in layers. You will need to be covered for a range of weather conditions. Even if it is sunny, you can get caught in a breeze.

My watercolour painting box.

I would always recommend creating a few sketches when you arrive on site. This will help you decide what to paint. They only need to be small, but will give you the composition on paper. Make some as landscape format and some as portrait. The best composition may not always be obvious. One of the hardest things when you start painting plein air is deciding what NOT to paint. There is so much to choose from. You will have to start making decisions. This practice is important if you want to progress as an artist.

A page from my sketchbook.

Set out your painting with minimum fuss. What I mean here is don’t spend too long on your drawing. Make sure you have enough information so things are in the right place, and you have enough detail. You are only going to be there for a relatively short time so you have to learn to be efficient. One of the other joys of painting plein air is that you can move things. If something really interesting is just off to the side, slide it in! You can’t see it if it is just off the edge of a photo. This is all part of the editing process, and has been done by artists since the impressionists started painting scenes from life.

Set up at Gorleston Beach.

When you paint, go with your emotional response. You want to express what made you want to paint the scene. Was it the sun hitting the wall? Was it the drift of flowers along the path? Was it the sky? Get down what attracted you. And remember, good is enough. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Please remember, when you put your shadows in, you need to put ALL your shadows in. You don’t want one part of the painting having morning shadows to the left of your composition, and another part showing the sun coming from a different direction. I would concentrate of your focal point. The rest of the painting can be an impression.

Nearly there.

One of the other things that worry some people is the public. If this is you, make your first plein air paintings in your garden. Somewhere you will not be disturbed. When you are feeling braver, go somewhere you know is quiet. Put your back against a wall.  If you have headphones in, less people talk to you. But to be honest, the public are on your side. On the whole, those who will approach you are interested. They often wish they could do it. The ones who aren’t interested will walk on by. Once you have been out a few times, you will realise it is an amazing experience, and one that I am addicted to.

https://www.deniseallen.co.uk 
https://www.originalpainting.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/DeniseAllenFineArt 
https://instagram.com/deniseallen6405 
https://youtube.com/artydenise
https://youtube.com/thetravellingbrushdippers

Ali H Discusses her hearing loss and how it affects her work.

I’m an Artist, and I’m hard of hearing...there, I’ve said it! For a long time, I didn’t tell anyone and, having long hair, no-one ever saw my hearing aids! This wasn’t always a wise thing to do and I have learned, subsequently, to be open about it.

I was a Primary school teacher for twenty years, but it wasn’t until I worked as a supply teacher, that I realised the seriousness of my problem.

Diagnosed with hearing loss at 38 years old, I remember wearing my first hearing aids and supermarket shopping. I was shocked by the loud noises around me...the unfamiliar crackle of crisp packets in my trolley.

My hearing loss is regressive. My Audiologist, believes that I must have been deaf from childhood and is amazed that I cope so well. I have turned it on it’s head and made it a positive thing! My strategies include lip reading, making sure light is on people’s faces, no backlighting, context clues from sentences, body language, facial expressions, and finding a quiet spot, where possible. Also, rather importantly, making quiet time and losing myself in my Artwork, which is like a kind of therapy.

To be a good Artist, I believe it is important to to be a good observer. My other senses have become razor sharp, and I use them more intensely. “The brain adapts to the loss by giving itself a makeover...senses...get rewired and put to work processing other senses” (scientificamerican.com)

My sense of smell is heightened and aromas can be very evocative, like the fragrances of a Moroccan Spice market or wild honeysuckle. I use my eyes to really see the world around me. I love colour. I enjoy watching flames flickering and cloud shapes morph in the sky. When I see birds, I can imagine the song they’re singing. As my low pitched hearing is better than most at my age, I can still hear things that contribute to my Artwork....like the pounding of waves, scattering the shingle on a beach. I love to touch things...from the roughness of a wall, to cool, damp mist on my cheeks. Tasting is also a wonderful way to understand a subject. I encourage my students to use their senses to explore their subjects too.

While I do get very frustrated, I am actually thankful for my hearing loss. It forced me to reach out for a change in direction. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I turned it around. It all started at an exhibition, where someone asked me about my mixed media painting. This lead to two commissions and the request to teach a group of ladies, in a kitchen, in Wilmslow. Word spread and, to cut a long story short, I now run regular classes in Poynton, Cheshire, All day workshops, Demonstrations for Art groups and “Live workshops” for the SAA.

I feel very privileged to be an artist and to be my own boss, running my Art business, “ALISART”. Every day brings new challenges. I really love what I do.

Suffering from hearing loss has helped me to be a better teacher. I understand what people go through with disabilities. I am particularly aware of the many people who suffer as I do. When teaching or demonstrating, I speak clearly, make sure the light is on my face, use gestures and my visual Artwork to illustrate. Lots of energy is put into my Demonstrations.

Hearing loss is difficult, but I am proud to say I have turned it on it’s head and made it a positive thing!

To see more about Ali H…

https://www.alisart.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/www.alisart.co.uk 
https://www.instagram.com/alijhargreaves/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYNt2K9Vp9D6MO8BtgBaqMg

Ali B on Copyright - What should you know?

I’m not going to lie, copyright is a tricky one. The good news is that the answer to most copyright questions is incredibly simple but before we get to that, let’s quickly chat about why you have to know about copyright in today’s art world.

Did you notice that I said ‘have’ and not ‘need’? This isn’t a part of being creative that you can opt out of, no matter what your proficiency level you have to know what you can copy, what you can’t copy and the very grey and misty areas that lurk in between. Let’s get back to that very simple question regarding the answer to most copyright queries - here it goes then:

And the answer is? Nope.

Sorry, that might come as a shock to some of you and it’s usually followed by ‘but’ with the following list of reasons:

1. ‘As long as I change more than 10/20/99 (this number is variable)% then it’s okay’
   No, that’s not true. There is something known as a ‘fair use’ policy in copyright legalise but it always comes down to intent, if you intended to copy it then it doesn’t matter how much you change, the original remains with the person who created it and unless you obtain written permission from the creator, you have no right to copy it.

2. ‘Facebook owns all the images that are placed there’ OR ‘Once it’s on the internet it’s in the public domain’
   No, that isn’t correct. Facebook obtains the right to publish anything you place on its platform for marketing purposes but you sign up for that when you join. That doesn’t give you the right to copy something someone else has posted without their permission.
   If everything on the internet was in the public domain, we’d be in huge amounts of trouble with plagiarism, performing rights, intellectual property…etc.

3. ‘No one will ever know’
   Here we hit a snag as this is more a moral consideration and then it’s down to your own internal compass. Try to think of it this way instead - a professional photographer earns a living by investing in their equipment, time and skills by taking a photograph. To copy their photograph without permission is denying them the opportunity to get recompense for their expertise. Will they ever know that you have copied their photograph? Probably not so let’s think of it another way. You create a painting from a photograph you didn’t take and suddenly you get lots of recognition for a fantastic piece of artwork and are asked if it can be featured in a painting magazine. You are either going to have to turn down that opportunity or you are going to get found out and then, very probably taken to court.

4. ‘Even if I do get found out, no one will follow it through’

   Not true. If you are interested read this article regarding how artists have been sued for large amounts of money over copyright infringement.
   (Article written by Kaitlyn Ellison for 99 designs.co.uk)

Am I being harsh about this? Yes! Am I apologetic about this? No! I’m sorry that this might be news and you could be having a cold sweat right now thinking back to times when you didn’t realise what you were doing. We have all been there, we didn’t know any better but the brilliant fact is that now you do and will be better informed in the future.

Don’t be daft. There are so many things you can do to help yourself and all of them guilt free:

1. Ask permission from the photographer.
   Spend some time tracking down the photographer and emailing them to ask for permission. Explain what it is you would like to do and where the final product is going to end up. I have never had a photographer say no and usually they are very grateful for the professional courtesy and are interested in a fellow creative. I made some wonderful creative partnerships that way.

2. Do your research.

   Assume that you can’t use something and go from there to prove that you can, not the other way around.

3. Learn about Creative Commons licenses, it’s useful information.
   Start with this, it helps you to understand things better. (Taken from https://creativecommons.org)

4. Use a site that allows you to use photographs such a Pixabay BUT!!! You still need to do your homework with these sites, it’s not free reign to download everything left, right and centre just a little easier than others.

My last piece of advice is to know the difference between copying something and gathering inspiration. Sites such as Pinterest are great for assimilating great swathes of inspiration, just don’t take one individual element and assume that it’s fine to follow it to the letter.

In terms of what we do as art tutors, I can only speak for myself and the things that I ask of the people I teach, here are the rules that I ask my students and clients to follow:

I’m thrilled that you like my work enough to want to test out the techniques that I use when I share them with you. If you see a painting I have done and I haven’t described how I’ve painted it, I either don’t want to divulge it or haven’t got to the bottom of the technique yet so please don’t copy it.

Most of the time I’m fairly lovely (my husband may say different), but if I find you teaching a derivative version of a tutorial that I have spent hours putting together, you and I are going to have a very long conversation and it won’t end well. Please don’t put me in that position.

I sign contracts with all sorts of companies where I’m not the only person to have the copyright on the work for example books, magazines and DVDs. They have different sorts of copyright over the images that are shown and the text that is written, you may need to do your homework about these too.

If you have used one of my taught sessions (free or paid for) to create a piece of work and you would like to do something specific with that painting, please just email me to ask. I’ll be thrilled that you bothered and will probably simply ask you to say ‘from a tutorial by Alison C. Board’ wherever it is going to be seen. Advertising isn’t cheap and you doing that will help me out enormously.

Please don’t bring photographs that aren’t copyright free to my sessions, it reflects very badly on me and I won’t let you use them. Not because I’m standing on my soapbox but because if I let you do it then I will be a complete hypocrite and my livelihood is at stake here.

Thank you for getting to the bottom of this, it’s a tough thing to get your head around I do realise that, but I hope the information I have imparted is received with the humour and enthusiasm with which it was intended.
If you or your art group would like to know more about this aspect of art, I do a very interactive presentation all about it that educates people to question their sources while injecting a bit of humour into such a dry subject. If you think your group might be interested then please get in touch via downendfarmstudio@gmail.com and I will be only too happy to help.

Over to the rest of the ADD team now to see what their thoughts on the subject are…

Take care, Ali B

Our House - Ali B

The trepidation I felt waiting for the parcel to arrive from Matthew was pretty intense and being last to go with all of those stellar artists ahead of me was quite daunting.

When I unwrapped the parcel I was blown away by the range of styles, techniques and media used and I knew straight away that I wasn’t going to be able to adapt my usual style of way of painting as it just would have looked incongruous with the rest of the project.

I knew what I wanted my subject to be, it was Sharon who gave me the inspiration to think a little differently and Jeremy shared his love of illustration so I embarked on a very different way of painting than I was used to.

I’ll let you watch the video to see where I took it and why and I’m not gonna lie, I HATED the paper and so the video is an interesting insight into how one artist can struggle with tools that she’s not used to but it’s always interesting to be pushed out of one’s comfort zone.

Did I say pushed? I meant shoved…

So this sees the end of this project and it’s been great to share the page with my ADD colleagues, this coming weekend (11th & 12th September) we have a collaboration of a different kind and if you would like to be among the first to see it, you can watch it go out live on our Facebook page.

All of us look forward to speaking to you at the weekend, ALi B

Our House - Part Five with Matthew

For my section of this painting, I was inspired by my surrounding area. The Peak District and this time of year the wonderful old cottages and their cottage gardens.

As well as an artist I’m a keen photographer and I love rustic, anything with rustic charm. Like the broken gate in this cottage scene.There is something about worn, old and rustic scenes that just appeal to me. The cottage I painted is from imagination, like a lot of my paintings, but based on a village near the spa town of Buxton called, Ashford in the Water. Known locally as Ashford in the Watercolour. As this village so pretty, every corner you turn has a paintable scene. 

Our House - Part Four with Jeremy

When we discussed Ali H’s idea of each of us painting a 6th part to a wider painting I wasn’t sure how this would work; how we could each paint a narrow strip containing houses of our individual interpretation without the whole thing looking a bit weird! It wasn’t after all the kind of thing that I’m used to doing and rather outside my comfort-zone but it has certainly been a challenge and a lot of fun! 

Ali H had started with her painting on the left, and Denise had then painted her contribution to the left of my space so I wanted to try and tie in some of the shapes at the edge of her painting with my own to try and make it flow a little, merging here and there.

About forty years ago I painted a picture of a tree-home to some deliberately ambiguous creature or other and I fancied a similar setting for my interpretation of the “house” subject.  I thought the tree-house was a good idea but I couldn’t see how I was going to handle all the masses of foliage at the top where everyone else so far had left so much sky showing. One idea often leads to another so I thought: what if the tree was dead, or if it was Winter, and the tree had no leaves on it. My idea developed then as a kind of illustration which might tell a story. What is the significance of the robin? What kind of animal lived here? Why is it for sale? Different people may have different answers to all these questions. 

I chose gouache for my bit because it is so forgiving and easy to correct and change. I love the flexibility that gouache gives an artist and I feel pleased with the end result.  

Our House - Part Three with Denise

I was looking forward to this project. I wanted to get cracking with my portion of the painting, but I was equally excited to see the other sections that had already been painted. I had seen a photo of Ali H’s section, but not Sharon’s.

The postman knocked on the door and I knew immediately what it must be. A very large, flat parcel, that could be nothing else. I knew I should message Sharon first who was soooo concerned about the arrival of the parcel, but I couldn’t help myself. I carefully opened the package to reveal the paper. I just sat and took it in. When we discussed the project, we had left the whole thing very open. We all knew it would be houses, but not exactly what we would do. The two sections already there were just so different from each other and I found that really exciting.

Just to be fair, I messaged Sharon, and could almost hear the sigh of relief across the internet.

I put the piece up in my lounge and just looked at it for a couple of days. Do you do that? Keep looking at a piece until it becomes obvious what you need to do? I do it all the time. In a way, there was no question that I would paint my own garden and house. I am very fortunate with where we live, but I have also worked especially hard this year in the garden. In terms of which part of the house, my studio is so important to me, and is such a large part of my life I couldn’t really paint anything else.

My pink rose was in full bloom, so I wanted to include that. I also really wanted to include my easel. This is just outside my studio, and is my favourite place here to set up to paint. It’s under cover, but outside.

The next decision was which section of the painting should be mine. I felt I could integrate my choice with Ali’s so that’s where I went. Sharon was right when she said adjoining her piece would be a challenge! I chickened out of that.

Then it was time to set up and paint. During the last few months we have all had nightmares with our technology. I tried very hard to set up so I could paint outside in front of the view. Unfortunately, this meant I couldn’t film easily as the sun and shadows just created too much interference on the painting. As this is meant to be a demo, I felt it needed to be visible, so I retreated with my sketches and a photo into the calm of the studio to create my part of the magic.

Once I was finished I replaced the painting into Sharon’s excellent packaging and relabelled it to send to Jeremy. It was now my turn for separation anxiety.

Finally, I sat down to edit the filming I had done. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed painting it.

I am looking forward to seeing each section of this project come to life.



Our House - Part Two with Sharon

When the idea of a joint project came up in our Zoom meeting, we all loved the idea.

Thrashing out the “what” and the “how” was fun. As you can imagine, there were some interesting proposals for the subject, but we decided on the Houses Project. Now as you know, I don’t do normal and I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could approach this with a twist. I went through the options of tree house, dolls house, fairy house etc. but finally decided on a lighthouse. There is something about a lighthouse, isn’t there? The raw elements and being isolated, at one with nature. I like the nostalgic idea of the lighthouse keeper out there keeping the shipping safe with that shaft of light splitting the night sky. Of course, nowadays, things are very different with the whole system being automated, the lone man out there in the elements is just a long-faded dream…

With this in mind, and the fact that I could make life exceedingly difficult for my companions if I put my lighthouse in the middle of the picture, I placed it on the end. I hoped this wouldn’t restrict them with their own creations and the flow of their pictures. It took me an afternoon to design, draw and create and it was fun!

The next stage of course was sending it on to the next artist, and that posed its own problems, I can tell you. It is quite a large piece, and the paper is quality, good and thick. So… it wouldn’t roll and go in a tube, and it had to be flat; who wants to paint on paper that is creased? I had foam board in the loft, and this is simply perfect for sending artwork. It doesn’t bend or crease, it is very light, and it is waterproof when you seal the edges with parcel tape.

Postage is quite easy now too; I can do most of mine online and all that was left was physically posting it. With Lockdown, I didn’t want to go to the Post Office, it didn’t fit in the post box of course, so I had to accost the postman the next day. No worries about that, he is a sweetie and as he took it said, “Oh! What is this? One of your paintings?”

At that point, there was a roaring in my ears, the world stopped spinning, and I thought, “Oh my goodness, it is isn’t it! What if something happens to it?” And I watched without a word, nodding dumbly as he carried it away to the van, threw it in the back and drove away… Precious baby paintings all on their own, travelling to a new home all alone… what if… ?

We can be such Drama Queens about our art, can’t we? I waited anxiously for days until Denise messaged to say that it had arrived. This was equivalent to that dreadful day when I first put my 11- year-old son on a plane all alone! Anyway, I hope you enjoy the big reveal every week and the videos that go with it. We all had a great time… who knows what we will get up to next time?!

Our House project By Ali H

‘Artist Demo Days’ is made up of six very creative people. We get very excited just talking about and exploring ideas. So I guess it’s no surprise that we want to use our creativity in what we share with you. We are constantly coming up with innovative ways to share our work. After giving you a flavour of our work with our Live demonstrations on Facebook, which have been so overwhelmingly popular, we have decided to take it further here on our website.

This project began on a whim during our weekly Zoom meeting when we were discussing ways forward. During the conversation, I said “I know...what about a collaborative voice of Art work where we all contribute to the same piece?” The idea grew and after several considerations about topics, we agreed on a line of houses. That’s where the creativity began and it has grown into something rather special and a little bit different. Each of us has added a “house” to the picture starting with mine, Ali Hargreaves, followed by Sharon Hurst, then Denise Allen, Jeremy Ford, Matthew Palmer and finally Ali Board. We have done our bit then posted onto the next Artist.

We have videoed ourselves painting our contribution and so basically you get six demonstrations all together. We will be releasing them one at a time...a week at time....so you can see the progression as each painting has been added on.

The big reveal will be after Ali B has added the missing part to our story. We hope you enjoy the journey and the anticipation.

Welcome to the new Artist Demo Days blog

Hello everyone, it’s Ali B here.

After what seems like a longer time than it has actually been, our society has slowly started to emerge and make steps towards returning to a normal life…well something closely resembling it anyway.

There have been many hideous things we have had to deal with in the last few months but there have been many wonderful things too and that brings me to Artist Demo Days. After the stark realisation that our livelihoods were slipping away before our eyes, the six of us came together for moral support and, if I’m honest, a bit of commiseration and weekly gin drinking.

Not that we thought we were in any way suffering the worst of it, I can only speak personally in that the business I had fought so hard to build up on my own was in danger and no one can give you better advice than those who are in the same position as you. And so Artist Demo Days was born and a group of lovelier and more supportive people I couldn’t have hoped to find including people who I have admired for such a long time I never dreamed that I would be in a position to call them colleagues.

This website is going to be developing as we continue to expand on what we do as a group and tackle the current climate and our own commitments - we look forward to you visiting us often and seeing you at an event very soon.