WOW £637.50 !!!

Today I had the extreme pleasure of posting 3 cheques for £212.50, one each for Compassion in World Farming, Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Mousehole Wild bird Hospital.

And just want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who helped me to make it possible. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to everyone who bought, shared, encouraged, liked and stayed with me for the 100 days. I could not have done it without you.

Here are a few of the paintings sold in my ‘100 Things Wild’ Challenge 100 paintings in 100 days.

 

 

The End is Nigh….100 Things Wild Charity Challenge

Well, only nine days to go and 5 wild things to paint.  I have lots of paintings left in my shop…I think I may have flooded my little market corner of my market!!!  But, all is well I will have raised over £400 for Charity which is entirely positive and a wonderful thing to be able to do.

So what next? 100 days is rather too long a challenge for me and I have found it difficult to remain engaged in the idea.  I will not be repeating the how many can I paint challenge enough is enough :).  In many ways I feel that this could be a device I  use to prevent a deepening engagement with my practice…or an enjoyable distraction.

Anyway if you would like to see, share or of course purchase any of my challenge paintings they can be found in my shop and will remain there at least until the 9th December, the last day of the challenge.

If you have followed me, thank you very much for staying with me.

One of my Hares from day 90…

Poetry of Animals and back to my challenge

I feel like I have been away…but I haven’t, I had a little break from the Challenge whilst getting ready for our exhibition at Morvah Schoolhouse Gallery.

We had poetry readings, music, great company and very interesting conversations at the preview and it seems to have been a very successful exhibition for everyone who took part.

Here are a few photos of the show…

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So now it is back to my 100 Things Wild Challenge.   Here are a few of the paintings still available all of them will remain at £50 until the end of the challenge and 50% of all the funds raised will go to my 3 chosen charities Compassion in World Farming, Mousehole WIldbird Hospital and Cornwall Wildlife Trust.  Please click here to browse the available paintings  and here if you would like to join my mailing list to see the paintings first as they are created 

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Charity Challenge – week 1 an insight!

This is a round up of the emails sent out to my mailing list with a little insight into the way my mind has been working day by day….possibly not the best thing to share sometimes.  

I started on the day the Badger culls recommenced so Badgers where everywhere.  It therefore seemed fitting to start with Badgers.    I find it difficult to paint one at a time I painted 3.  This raised an interesting issue, does painting 3 Badgers constitute 1 Wild Thing or 3…?

 

Day 2

I pondered the question and decided that all the paintings need to be of a different wild thing to count towards the 100! 

Inspired by my trip over the summer to Skokholm Island.  Skylarks song seemed to be all around us at times, you can read their wonderful blog here.  Sadly they are in decline due to the changes in land management and farming practice, you more about them from the RSPB here.

Day 3

It only took a couple of days for me to be feeling confined by the constraints I had set myself.  In trying to rationalise them in my own mind I stated that “I am trying to work a little more steadily and pace myself ( ha ha I am not great at that!).  Instead of making as many paintings as I can in a day.  I am reminding myself that this challenge is about allowing myself time for consideration and establishing structure as well creating 100 paintings in 100 days! “

My painting was of a little Nuthatch seen in a local nature reserve called Pendarves Woods it is wonderfully managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust you can find out more by clicking here.

 

Day 4

A Snipe with amazing legs! They visit us at a very beautiful lake not far from my home. Stithians Lake is managed by the South West Lakes Trust  with the help of a Cornwall Bird Watching Preservation Society warden which means that it is fully equipped with some very well positioned hides.  Many of the birds I will paint have probably been viewed here.  

 

Day 5

A Shoveler for day 5.  I first saw one of these extraordinary birds at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust  where I had an exhibition a few years ago.  

 

Day 6

I took a trip around Mountsbay with  Marine Discover Penance  it was a belated birthday present for my Mum, it was fantastic, if you would like to see a few of the photos from the day  please check out my facebook page

Nothing like the vastness of the sea a few Harbour porpoises and a chat with my Mum to bring all my questions into focus!!! So now what should I do about all these thoughts, I am committed to this Challenge so how can I make it more useful?

Now  less than 1 week in I am questioning the whole idea of this challenge in terms of my own creativity (it was inevitable that this would happen…I am always like this) All the usual What is the purpose of life/art questions washing around my mind!!!

I finished my painting before I set off just in case, it was a pair of magpies

 

Day 7

By now the pace of 1 a day was killing me!!!  

In July last year took a kayaking qualification with Hayle Canoe Club and one lovely evening the sky was full of these elegant and beautiful birds and their close relatives.  I couldn’t just paint one of them!  

Day 8

So I upped the pace…a lot!  I had a bit of a painting marathon, October and November are looking incredibly busy so I thought I should try to get a bit ahead of myself over the next few days.

 In light of my change of pace,  I decided to changes my self defined rules too.  I only sent out 1 painting though because scanning, putting on website etc takes almost as long as the paintings.

Also thanks to my Dad for reminding me, I included here for one of the Radio 4 Tweets of the day for you too….

 

Today Day 9

I am off to be graduated from Falmouth University later it is over a year since I completed my Master of Art in Illustration Authorial Practice (with distinction 🙂 !!!) I am not sure where the time has gone but it may be this acting as a catalyst for my slight mental crisis around the charity challenge (more on this next time). 

My email went out an early today with the paintings made yesterday and today,  I think I had defined a new challenge…. how many can I paint in 24 hours!  Once I get everything set up though I do work quickly and because this is pure observation, working from photographs that I already have I am able to get a lot done in a day.  I cant sustain this for any period of time though, as I either run out of images or inspiration or it starts to feel like factory work and a little pointless…especially when the paintings have a price tag.  Funny how adding a monetary value always devalues the meaning/purpose/point of things.  Or is that just me?

I changed the rules slightly today too, to reflect my thoughts over the last few days and to keep it all simple.  Now all the paintings, drawings and sketches will be £50 including (UK) P & P with 50% to go to the 3 charities, hopefully they will be affordable (I always relate affordable to a tank of fuel for some reason!) , I will cover my costs and we will raise a little money for charity.  

All the paintings, drawings and sketches so far can be found here .  Please feel free to share my emails and facebook posts far and wide.

Many thanks

Suzy

 

Wow thank you!!!!

I have so many things to say about my new challenge I thought it best to write a blog post.

First of all I would like to thank everyone so very much for liking and sharing all my posts it has made a huge difference. As promised today I made a prize draw for the winner of a pack of cards…and the winner is……….Sandra Kaighin, congratulations to you!

Also I have to thank and say thank you and welcome to all my new facebook, wordpress and twitter followers…I questioned if I could reach 1300 by the time I started my challenge and was amazed to have exceeded that figure by 17. So a big welcome to you all.

I have now sent my first set of ‘100 Things Wild’ paintings out to my mailing list to and feel very excited about the next 100 days who know where they will take me.  If you would like to be first to see the paintings as I finish them each day it is easy to subscribe to my mailing list here and easy to unsubscribe too.  Here is a little incentive to join my mailing list!

I stayed with the Badger theme for my paintings today and here they are…Badgers are very much in the news at the moment so it seemed fitting to start with them.  The question is having painted 3 of them is that 3 off my 100 Things or only 1?  I am still thinking about that one!

You can also view the paintings on my website in my online shop 

 

 

 

 

100 Things Wild – Why Challenge Myself?

Typically as soon as I had decided on my challenge, I started wondering why I was doing it…so I put a little thought into it and this is what I came up with.

So Why Challenge myself?

Despite the fact that most creative people would like to make work or sketch or do something every day,  life gets in the way and time passes (or is that just me). So by setting a pubic challenge I find that I can make this a priority.

The challenges encourage (force) me to make work every day, it is surprising how much my observational skills and painterly language improve when I work every day.  Also I can use the challenge drawings and paintings as warm ups for larger work that I am making at the same time and they get me quickly into my process without the time for the procrastination that I find I take part in once in a while!    They give me an aim and an achievable (hopefully) goal which I sometimes find hard to set and stick to.  This need for a goal or purpose has perpetuated my repeated return to education in order to find structure and space for development of my work.    Some people fulfil this  by means of competitions or exhibitions, I also use these occasionally but I tend to find short term goals such as these challenges very motivating, they keep my hands busy whilst my mind is preparing the next project.

Increased self awareness.

I find that I now have a reliable painterly language which I can return to if I am very short of time.  I  discovered that if I don’t intersperses  this very immediate working process with something slightly more considered I risk losing interest (but I do have a very short attention span).  Therefore the slight downside of a challenge like this there is very little time to consider the content of the work or reflect on its success or failure. I just have to get on with it and worry about it later.

Creative Development

This process lead working pattern inevitably enables work to shift gradually day by day as confidence increases and preferences, choices and patterns emerge.  The act of making work everyday moves everything forward and enables some of the wrinkles and creases to be ironed out.  In the same way as writing about creative process on a daily basis (as in morning pages from The Artists Way by Julia Cameron, here is an interesting article about the practice) It is almost impossible to tolerate the same short comings or problems every day without changing something or resolving them.

Not just about me.

Because the challenges are public I am not the only one involved and I find that the support and good wishes of everyone on facebook, twitter and my mailing list the most motivating part of the challenges and I don’t think that I could do it with out everyone else.  Encouraging words no matter what we are working on make all the difference in the world I find.

During my previous challenges other people began to join in, setting their own challenges and using them as a way to get back into their practice or their creative process.  In the same was as encouraging comments this had a huge effect on me, it felt that just by setting the challenge I was making a difference to others however small that might have been.   Donations to charity are part of my business strategy and always in my list of long term goals, it is vital to me to support worthwhile causes in any way I can, by giving work to auctions,  volunteering, running workshops, raising awareness, donating and raising funds through a variety of sales and challenges. This time I am hoping to fund raise for Compassion in World Farming, The Wildlife Trusts and Mousehole Bird Hospital.

For more information about this challenge please call in to my facebook page or follow me on Twitter or have a look at my website .

Here are a couple of paintings made in the last challenge for you to ‘critically evaluate’ the first from September 2014 and one of the last from the March Hares.

Thank you for following my progress, your thoughts and comments are always appreciated.

 

Time for a new challenge.

Day 5 – Sold

Good evening!

Last year I challenged myself in a number of ways creatively, I achieved a Masters of Art, for Illustration: Authorial Practice at Falmouth University,  By donating some sketches to sell on ebay I helped my daughter to raise over £3000 for her climbing trip to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in aid Meningitis research and as a result of this I set myself a couple of 30 day challenges.

The 30 day challenges were far more successful than I had imagined they would be both in for my own practice and in terms of charitable fund raising.  So I would like to do it again, I have mulled over a number of ideas, 30 days of Mono printing, 30 days with a palette knife, 30 drawings standing on my head with one arm tied behind my back (ha ha )….I have a long list but none seemed particularly challenging or exciting.  So I have decided to extend it a little from 30 days.  90 days seemed a good number, so I thought about painting 90 birds in 90 days, with the added constraint that they should all be different and I should have seen them all in or around Cornwall.  I was still thinking about this today. The only problem with this is it would mean I couldn’t draw Badgers, Foxes and Hares and everyone seemed to like them…

The only thing to do was to ask my lovely Facebook followers who have infinity more understanding of my practice than I do most of the time.  However it was pretty much 50:50. So I am left having to make a decision for myself!!!

So here it is…

Starting on the 1st of September I will be painting “100 things wild”  so it is a little restrictive in that there will be no cats, dogs, pets or farmed animals…but there will be plenty to keep me busy. I am also not giving myself a time limit although I intend to finish within 100 days.

I will need lots of help in sharing the event so that I can raise much needed funds for some amazing charities…30% of the proceeds from all the paintings sold will be split, as with the previous challenges, between Mousehole Wildbird Hospital, Compassion in World Farming and the Wildlife Trusts, more specifically Cornwall Wildlife Trust.  I hope to keep the paintings very affordable, they will all be unframed and under £100, most will be around £30 – 50 for the duration of the challenge and purely because it is about challenging myself.

In the meantime if you would like to join my mailing list so that you will be the first to hear of my future plans please follow this link.

I will leave you will a few  more of my favourite paintings from the 2014 challenges.

Many thanks & best wishes

Suzy

 

Challenges

 

In the November 30 Day Challenge, I successfully painted 3 painting each day or more, at the end of the month I had made over 120 pieces of work all of the paintings were for sale, mostly at £30 each with 30% split between my three nominated Charities Compassion in World Farming, Mousehole Bird Hospital and Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

I have just posted 3 cheques to the charities each for £300 which gives me a great deal of pleasure as I would not have been able to donate that amount of money directly.  I am very grateful to everyone who has followed and supported me throughout both of my challenges, many people offering kind words, encouragement and suggestions for subject matter.   About half way through November I asked if anyone would like a dog painted, within minutes I was inundated with photos…I realised that if I was to paint them all in the November challenge I would not have been able to paint anything else, so I decided to paint the Dogs in December.  I cant share them as some were commissioned for Christmas presents but will do in the new year.

At the beginning of November I tried to adopt a Greyhound from the Retired Greyhound Trust, but despite her settling in very quickly and being absolutely adorable from the minute I met her, I soon realised that my smallholding with low walls, croft land, feral cats (who run as soon as they see anything) and rabbits a plenty, would have meant a life on a lead for her.  So I very sadly had to return her after a very short foster period.  Knowing that I couldn’t help the work of the Trust by adopting a dog, I decided to donate the 30% of the sale price of the Dog paintings to them and I have so far raised £160 for them, which is again brilliant.

You can have a look at my shop to see the remaining Challenge paintings for a little while longer (some of my favourites are still there!) and you can pop over to my website to see the paintings that I made in the September and November Challenges.

So the question is what should I do next?

Quite a few people asked if I would paint their cats, horses and other pets, so I may do this in the New Year, I am also planning a number of exhibitions and I hope that my work will be spreading its wings and going in to a few more galleries around the country before spring, I am planning a number of more immersive  projects too and will let you know how they go.

I hope you all have a wonderful festive season and an inspired 2015.

Best wishes and many thanks for all your support.

Suzy

 

What Next ?

I have not counted how many paintings and drawings I made in September but it was more than 30.  About half way through I decided as I was making more than 1 a day I would post them all out to my priority mailing list.  By the end of the Challenge I had sold 56 paintings and raised £560 between my 3 amazing charities.  It was a wonderful moment when I posted the 3 cheques for £190 each to Compassion in World Farming, Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Mousehole Bird Hospital.

You can see the paintings and drawings that I made in September here http://suzysharpeartist.weebly.com/sepember-challenge.html.

So what next…

I went to London for a few days to paint extinct birds for the Ghosts of Gone Birds Project…this brought home to me the gravity of extinction.  I normally like to draw from life or from my own photographs, this time though I had to draw from blurred photographs of badly taxidermied birds. When they are gone they are really gone, no amount of models and stuffed skins will make up for it.

 

I also saw a few exhibitions, particularly memorable was the Anslem Kiefer at the Royal Academy.  Then I started thinking about what I can do next…Of course I would like to change the world…prevent anymore animals and birds becoming extinct and raise in the consciousness of every person the true value (not based on any fiscal system) and preciousness of the non human of animals that we share the world with…but that is a huge task.

So I will do all I can do…

Too much thinking isn’t good for me so I decided to set myself another Challenge. November has 30 Days so I intend to do another 30 Day Challenge throughout  November, this time I will paint 3 paintings a day!

More details can be found here http://suzysharpeartist.weebly.com/november-challenge.html. I would be delighted if you would like to see how it goes, if you can please sign up to my priority mailing list and share the challenge with your friends…the more people who get to know about it and follow it the more paintings I will sell (hopefully) and the more I can raise for my amazing charities…who really do make a difference!