How do you watch your movies?

I was thinking how my movie watching has really changed over the last few years and if this is something to do with the kids not being at home or if film making has changed? At this time of year when the kids were at home we would all sit round and watch Christmas Vacation link to Amazon or Its A Wonderful Life, link to Amazon, and really enjoy it as they are such slow paced inclusive films. Maybe our lives are just too quick now and we tend to want everything at a pace? Not films, take the classic Its A Wonderful Life for instance, story of a guy who thinks it would...

A Fantastic Artist

I recieved a link from a friend to some of the best watercolours I have seen for a while, have a look and let me know what you think? The artists name is Clive Wylie and you can view is excellent paintings here…      

Return to a Master!

What do you do when the ‘block’ comes? I read a book a long time ago, the name of the book escapes me, but in it was an American poet who was explaining to a group of students that when he gets a ‘block’ and can’t think of anything to write about he returns to an old master or someone who inspired him when he was starting out and this always seemed to get him back on the right path. This got me to thinking that if this could work for a poet could it work for a watercolourist? You bet it could! I found that when I was really struggling to get my creative juices...

Social Media Week – Glasgow

I have been invited to speak at this year’s Social Media Week in Glasgow on Friday 23rd September at 2pm and not only is it a privilege but I have to say I am really looking forward to it and of course if you can be there it would be great to meet you.   My talk will be about attracting your ‘Tribe’ and keeping them happy. I wrote a blog post  on this subject which you can read here.   This is something that is dear to my heart and it’s a great mix of who to follow and why. Your tribe is unique to you and because of that sometimes we can try too hard to...

Facebook to close Facebook Deals

According to Reuters Facebook are about to close down their Deals program. After just four months! Run as a Goupon-like system, a spokesman said “After testing Deals for four months, we’ve decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks.” “We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses. We’ve learned a lot from our test and we’ll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses.” The end of Facebook Deals is “certainly good” for Groupon and other daily deal services, Vacanti...

Watercolour Tuition

Tuition is one of the aspects of an artist’s life that can do one of two things: They take to it like a duck to water. Avoid it like the plague as it means you have to meet and interact with people. Fortunately I love meeting people and sharing my love of painting and especially watercolour painting, with them Coaching people to become artists started over fifteen years ago for me and I have loved every minute of it. It’s like when I go out and talk to people and businesses about social media and how that can help their businesses brand and promote themselves. This...

Lakes Artists Society Exhibition 2011

We attended the Lakes Artists Society Exhibition yesterday and I have to say it was well worth the visit and I highly recommend that if you are in the area, and it’s a fantastic are to be in, please drop in. The quality of work is high this year, that’s not to say that it hasn’t been high in the past, but the artists seem to have pulled out all the stops this year and there are some exceptional works on display. Highlights Heather Davis – Is a fantastic artist and I have to say here work is very vivid and really pleasing to the eye I just found her work...

Paint a sky a day

Rowland Hilder always used to say “Paint a sky a day”. That was one of the things I always tried to do when I had the gallery and living in the beautiful harbour town of Whitehaven it wasn’t that difficult.   I could wander out on to the harbour and at anytime of day the sky would be full of movement, birds, clouds, first thing in the morning there was the smell of the fishing boats landing their catch.   One of the wonderful things I love about watercolour is the immediacy of it and how it moves about on the paper like no other medium and I...

Video – Hillman Curtis

I have long admired the work of Hillman Curtis, he is, in my humble opinion, without doubt one of the great modern artists. I first came across him in the late nineties when I was struggling with how to get video on the web. I had this grand plan that I could video myself painting and upload it to the web and all through a 14k modem. Not the greates idea I have ever had but then again when you see whereYouTube is today maybe I should have stuck at it?   Anyway my research led me to Hillman’s website and I was bowled over by his minimal use of colour and the use...

Holburne Museum you either love it or ha...

A clip from the Daily Mail (Daily Mail) “The Holburne Museum, (http://www.holburne.org/) sited at the end of grand Great Pultney Street, was always one of Bath’s interesting museums with its slightly chaotic collection of silver, majolica, Dutch pictures and Renaissance bronzes accumulated by Sir William Holburne and bequeathed to the city after his death in 1874. But thanks to a grant from the National Lottery, the Holburne has now been wonderfully extended and renovated.” What’s your view brilliant architecture or...