What on earth do you look like?

Does it matter what I look like? Is it important? Does it matter what sort of person I am and how I appeal to people?

I'm beginning to think it might.......................

Last week I had quite a bit of correspondence going back and forth between me and the library where I am hoping to exhibit next year. I'd met the woman I'm corresponding with at Stuarts Writers group, as she is part of it, and she also works for the library and thinks my erotic art would be fabulous at her library. Great!!! Very exciting, and a delight that she was so enthusiastic and positive about my art, and about me too. BUT, she and I both knew that I do erotic art, and some people struggle with it, and they might struggle a lot with it in a public library, if they are of a sensitive nature - or, of course, children. Some of my art is not at all suitable for children to view. I understand that. So, for that reason, I was asked to send some erotic images to my new friend at the library for her to check with her colleagues that it was "acceptable". No problem. I sent 30 of my more "acceptable" ones, 29 of which only had a single woman in the picture, so there was nothing sexual going on between two people in any of the pictures. The answer came back that whilst all the work was considered good and accomplished, some of it was deemed to be a little risque for the library, but if I would like to get together a collection of my other art, and put in some of the tamer erotic stuff, then that was fine by them, and I could ring up to book a date for next year. So, I rang to make the arrangement, and had another positive and upbeat conversation with my contact there. She made me smile when she said that some of the little old ladies might complain about some of my art and yet they took out "Mills and Boon" books by the dozens, and those books in particular are FULL of erotic goings on on EVERY page!!! I'm imagining all these fevered old ladies now getting all hot and bothered by the muscular thighs, square shoulders, tight buttocks, chiselled jaws but sensitive hands of Peregrine or whatever the hero's are called as they rip the clothes off the heroines in a frenzied and heated passionate embrace!

But, there was something else she said, that made me think. She said that she had shown my website to her female colleagues for them to see what sort of work I do. And whereas the art was considered acceptable as most of these women in their 50's and 60's had "seen it all before" there was one burning question they were intrigued about...............

They wanted to know........................... what I looked like. Was I young or old? Was I a punk with spiky hair? What was I like as a person? It REALLY mattered to them.

And that's got me thinking. Because last week I went to the annual art festival at Patchings and had a lovely day there looking around the arts and crafts being sold there, buying a few art materials, and chatting with the artist friends I bumped into whilst I was there. But there was one artist whose work bowled me over, it was stupendous. It was stunning (I'm not chosing these words lightly, I truly was *stunned* by them to the point of losing my words to start with, then after having a long and very positive chat with the artist in question, I had a strong feeling of the other art there being of a far lesser quality, and therefore not so important for me to spend my time looking at it afterwards!). But when I told other people about her, I said "The artwork was stupendous, the technical ability was fabulous, the way it was painted really spoke to me, the choice of composition called me, and the artist was a really nice person, she was lovely to talk to, and look at, and I really liked her!"

So. Have I answered my own question. Should I put more about myself on my website? Should I put a photo of myself on it? Would it make a difference to the people who like my art? Could they relate to me better because of it?

I've always presumed that I don't need to put more personal details on my site, because "the art talks for itself". But does it say enough?

And as a post-script: One of the reasons I haven't put my photo on my website is because I do erotic art. And I'm a woman. So, if I put my photo on my website, am I going to get aggravation from it?

What do you think? And I know some of you know me in real life, and some of you don't have a clue what I look like.

Does it matter?

One down, one to go!

After all these weeks of working on it, I cay say the magic words - "Its finished!"



There's a good feeling of achievement, of a job well done, of reaching the goals I'd set myself. To produce a picture of Fitzy's "fantasy willie" so that it doesn't look immediately like what it actually is, to paint it as a fun and exciting picture, to put some clever technical details in it so that the eye is tricked into some deception over the subject. And this finished painting is tighter on the design than the working painting that I did, more finely tuned, I think. Plus, it's painted on a large block canvas, so I've painted the four sides as a continuation of the main painting, which means that where ever it hangs, the finished image will look more "padded" than just a flat 2-D image in a frame would.

I love the way that the more I look at it the more I see different shapes within the picture - I can see a bird, a fish, an elephant, an oak leaf, a whale tail, and various letters of the alphabet. I love the flowing lines, the changes of colour, the way the eye wanders over the image and finds interest in the different shapes and contours, the way some of the colours mutate into other colours, the flat colour a good contrast to the softer tones painted thinly on the canvas and letting the white of the canvas below it to shine through. Even though the glazing technique that I've used here is really a watercolour technique, it works well enough on the large canvas and makes the painting more delicate in a way, than just flat colour does. Having said that, this is the most masculine of images, so it needs some good deep colour in the painting too, so that it is strong and powerful, and the areas of black paint certainly help to anchor the lighter colours within the painting. So, I'm really pleased with it. Infact, absolutely delighted with it, and Fitzy is too, so he tells me, so that's two happy bunnies over this painting!!! LOL

And just to make the point, that the colours on the canvas are far stronger and yet more subtle than the image here shows. I think it's the sort of painting you can never tire of - partly for the subject matter, the vibrant colours and flowing shapes within it, and the hidden shapes that appear to each person who views it, in different ways. Fitzy said he could see a fire breathing dragon, and tigers stripes in his first viewing of this picture..... and more images will appear, I'm sure! That's what I love about my pictures, when other images appear to different people.......

So, it's done.

But I haven't finished. Not by a long way.

Because now I can start on the "living flame" picture that Fitzy also wants as a sibling to this one. They will hang together, so the colours need to match and enhance each other. I wanted to paint this one first, as the colour was applied flat in places, so by doing those first I got a good feel to how the canvas and paint react together. All surfaces react in different ways, and different paint does too - watercolours, gouache, acrylic and oils all have different feels to them on the brush, and how they are applied to the surface they sit on, and how absorbent that surface is - whether its watercolour papers, and all of those react in different ways too, board, gesso'd board, and canvas, all of those are different in their surfaces and absorbency, so it made sense to get the "feel" of the paint on the canvas before I started the tricky painting, and the living flame will be a bit tricky as it is created by "glazing" the paint.... in that a transparent colour is applied to the canvas (say pink) , then another translucent colour will be applied over the top (say yellow), allowing the lower colour to shine through the top colour (creating orange, in this example) - its a way of colour mixing on the surface, and is far more interesting to look at than just painting one colour.

So, that's it, one down, another to go! :)

Talking to the magic writers

I quite enjoyed it, in the end, talking to the writers at Stuarts Magic Attic group. But I'd spent all week writing, re-writing, editing and practising my talk. It was only ten minutes, and in a way it was harder doing ten minutes than a longer time, because there is so much I wanted to say, but had to keep it down to the bare facts. Of course, it helped enormously that Stuart did his talk before mine, as he was an excellent "warm up" guy - being both entertaining and amusing. And that's hard to do - to be funny. And in the right places! But he's clever with words, and that helps.

I hadn't met any of the writers before, and they knew nothing about me or the subject matter of Stuarts or my talk. And I wasn't sure what any of them wrote about until I got there, and had an introductory chat with the woman running the meeting. Most of them were local historians. Ok, then, no problem. And some had never been before. Ok, then, no problem. And the talk wasn't to go over ten minutes, as people start to get bored then. Ok, no problem. What about mentioning erotic art then I asked. Better not, she said. Ok, then, good job I'd decided on a two part talk, the basic promotional one, and the other about the more specific very erotic art. I'll cut the second part, don't want any of them walking out in disgust and being offended.

I went up to the meeting room with Stuart and his wife, and we decided where to sit - I opted for the far end of the room, with a wall behind me, as then I could put my art carrying bag down easier, and also could talk to the room, without having to swivel around to include the people behind me. It was all very informal, with tables laid out in the refectory style, with seats either side. There were about 25 people there, drinking tea and coffee and chatting, and I was told they meet every three months.

Stuart and I settled ourselves in, and I sat conversing with the woman next to me, who I hadn't ever met before but she knew all about my website and the artwork on it because Stuart had told her about it months ago after I'd done the drawings of him and he'd shown them to her. He's a walking advert for me!!

After a few minutes the meeting started, a few points that needed mentioning, then we were introduced as the speakers "Stuart and his friend Jackie". Stuart stood and did his talk. (The gist of it is featured here on my blog). And he entertained them beautifully, and they laughed in all the right places, and he got a rousing round of applause for his efforts. Then it was my turn, I stood, and explained that I was an unusual artist because of all the different types of art I do, so I call myself an erotic artist as it gets me noticed more! I explained what erotic art is, and how I started doing it, I told them I was in two art organisations - Ashby Guild of Artists, and the Guild of Erotic Artists, and that I had sold artwork locally and internationally to Canada, and the USA. I said I was a writer too, in that I write a blog, and told them about my website, and said that if any of them wanted any illustrations done for their books, or a dog portrait doing, for them to contact me, and said I had flyers and business cards to hand out to them all there. That was it - ten minutes! And I got a good round of applause too. Phew!

But that's just the fishing, I suppose. That's the bait thrown out and I never know what sort of interested things I'm going to catch with it...........................

A few people came over to view Stuarts drawings that he keeps in a large folder. He hadn't held them up incase any of them didn't want to view them, someone had joked earlier that he should have had them on the large projection screen behind him!

Then they came to me - the first chap asked me how much it would cost to repaint a print he had of a dog picture, I replied that I'd have to see it to be able to give him a full answer, but yes, it was certainly possible for me to do it for him....

The second chap asked if I would do a talk to his local civic group of 50 or 60 people, maybe next year, and I said I would be interested in doing it.....

The third chap said that Stuarts and my talk were the best thing they'd ever had at the Magic Attic, and that he was a speaker who did two or three talks a week to local groups, on local history. He'd written a few books that he pointed out to me on the shelf at the side of the room, one of the books was about the history of the privy, and he said he knew within five minutes of talking to a group, about which stories he could tell, and which to avoid!!!!!!!! He asked if I was on the WI list of speakers, and I said no, it was only the second talk I'd ever done, but I'd bear it in mind.

And the fourth person was the most interesting for me - she was fascinated with the white on black erotic drawings that I do and asked me if I'd be interested in exhibiting at Burton on Trents library. Yes I would! She said that she would book me straight away, if she could, but because it was erotic, would have to check it out with her colleagues. Ok, that's fine. I can do tasteful and acceptable art for the visitors to the library, it doesn't have to be strongly erotic.

So, ALL good stuff!

And I found them a friendly bunch of people, who made me most welcome. So that was nice too.

And maybe someone is writing a book, and maybe they want some illustrations, and maybe they'll contact me. But at least they know who I am now, and they didn't the day before.......