Wall to wall

It's looking for opportunities when they occur and leaping in when you get the chance that's something I keep an eye out for. The other week I was at the dentist and noticed that the waiting room had been re-decorated since my last visit. And there in front of me was a large and very B A R E patch of wall..... and I just have this big urge to FILL it with a painting when I see one of those! And I could envisage a nice painting there, oh yes, with my name in the bottom right hand corner, of course! But a painting of what, for a dentist? Ah, yes, I know, big cheesy smiles! Excellent choice! They would keep the nervous patients happy, and be a good advert for good teeth at the same time! I mentioned to my dentist that I was interested in painting a picture for the reception, but so far haven't heard anything. And I bet when I next go back, they've ignored my idea and put something boring up like a local landscape.... Sigh. That's not very toothy is it??!

And this last week I found that there's an excellent farm shop opened locally, so I went along at the weekend to check it out and was delighted with the excellent quality of the food and the reasonable prices. I made some purchases and had a quick chat with the owner about the cafe they have there with lots of empty wall space and said that I lived locally, was an artist and wondered if she'd be interested in putting my paintings on the walls. She said they'd been looking for an artist since they'd opened a year ago and would be interested in seeing my artwork. We made an arrangement for me to go to see her today and she said she'd prefer "landscapes" to anything else for her walls. (And before you ask, funnily enough I didn't mention the erotic landscapes I do - I didn't want her clientele choking on their tea-cakes when they saw some of the more raunchy stuff I paint!).

So, I went along this morning and took with me nine of my paintings to show her a selection of my artwork. She wasn't interested in the tigers (but then they're not very local to this area!) but went a real WOW over a painting I did some time ago of a cockerel and hen. It's here for you to look at and is called "Birds of a feather". She adored the bright colours and farmyard theme of it, understandably, if she's running a farm shop! So I'll choose that one along with some similar ones. We've agreed a "sale or return basis", which means she gets the paintings to hang on the walls and doesn't pay me for them. They stay in my ownership. But if she sells any, she'll take a percentage and I'll have the bulk of the selling price. Its a good arrangement for all concerned - the visitors to her cafe will have paintings to look at, changed regularly, and the opportunity to buy them; the owner of the cafe gets free artwork and an opportunity to make a bit of money if the paintings sell; the artist gets a wall to hang pictures on, and since it's a cafe the visitors are a captive audience and tend to sit and look at the art rather than miss it all together, and maybe they'll buy something. If the pictures don't sell, they come back to the artist.

And the best bit of this conversation was the farm shop owner said they'd been looking for a while for an artist to put some pictures on their walls, and they hadn't found one they liked until they saw my artwork. Yay!!! And the best bit is she wants TEN pictures on the wall!!! Hey, another YAY!!!! And she might commission me to do some other artwork for the rest of the shop, which they'll pay me for!!!! Wow!!! Triple YAY!!!!