Another painting coming soon...

I’ve been rather busy over the last couple of weeks, lots going on - except painting! But I’m going to remedy that very soon, and plan on starting some new works this coming week. I’ve had a few sales of prints and greetings cards, some giftware, and one oil painting, as yet not ready to go to its new home - it needs to dry and be varnished. They’ve now been either posted or delivered by hand (apart from the oil painting). I’ve also been updating my websites, trying to streamline them a bit, but still not quite finished.

In the midst of this my old phone died on me, several times, leaving me no option but to upgrade it (at long last), as it’s well past it’s upgrade date. I’ve really put off doing it, as it’s such a hassle usually. But I’m amazed to find just how easy it is these days - I’m a bit out of the loop with this sort of thing 😂. I backed my old phone up, then reluctantly ordered a new phone. Not the latest model you understand, I don’t need bells and whistles and over £40 quid a month fees, thank you very much! Ordered in the afternoon and delivered the next morning - whoaaaa that’s good service! New SIM card in that’s already programmed with my existing number (that is absolutely essential), and I didn’t even need to plug it into my laptop to transfer the data from the old phone backup! I just had to put the old phone and the new phone next to each other and, lo and behold the data transferred across automatically. How cool is that?!

I’m also in the process of pulling together the most liked images of paintings I’ve done, and finding out which images will translate the best onto printed giftware. Then I’m going to order a small stock of a few items, get them onto my website with prices and an order form, and a list of all the giftware that’s possible to order. I’ve already had a few trial items from the local print company I’m going to use, and I’m really happy with them. It’s going to be trial and error for a while, but I’ll see what sells best then concentrate on a smaller range of giftware to make it less complicated.

As summer progresses and lockdown eases more and more, I’m going to have a look around at what art fairs are still going to go ahead as autumn and (yes!) Christmas 🎄 approaches, and see if my health will allow me to take part in a few. I need to have a few trial runs before next year, when I may, fingers crossed, be taking part in a much bigger, whole weekend, art and craft festival, that’s in the very early embryo stage of being discussed.

And great news! The Coquetdale Art Gallery in Rothbury is reopening next Monday 13th July, after being closed since March. I’ve got three framed originals, five mounted prints and 20 greetings cards in there waiting to be loved and bought 😊

If you’re reading this, I’d be very grateful if you’d let me know which images of my paintings you’d like to see printed onto giftware such as mugs and coasters, tote bags, key rings, placemats etc.

Thank you!