Hello from Brighton, UK
 

Hi All

Just a brief hello as I have finally got around to joining after spending many a painting break browsing around (for far too long invariably!)

I'm currently bowing a little under the looming deadline of an impending solo show so its always really heartening to see the supportive and constructive attitudes around here...

I hope I can join in with just the same spirit!

All the best

Mary Jane

Welcome Mary Jane,
Beautiful painting. Please tell us more about your training and how long you have been painting. Much to enjoy in this piece, would love to see more.

Good luck on your solo show. You will surely have much to contribute as you continue to learn from the award winning artists here.

Patty

You too!

Welcome, Mary Jane. :) I look forward to your paintings and participation. Good luck on your deadline. Many can relate to that too!

Garth

Hi Mary Jane,
I loved your painting, and I went to see your site : I'm very impressed by the quality of your work!!! I just looked quickly cause I have not much time today, but as soon as I can I will go back for the pleasure of my eyes and my mind.
A warm welcome to this forum, and I wish you a nice show ( I don't think you need luck with such a beautiful work).

Thank you Patricia, Garth and Marina for the warm welcome!

Patricia to answer your questions about my background: I originally took an illustration BA Hons... graduating about 12 years ago now and since then I've been a more or less full time practitioner.

There have been a few periods where I holed up in my studio and reassessed or took illustration and design work to help with the bills but for the last few years I've been able to complete concentrate on my portraiture and figurative painting which is great...

But it is isolating sometimes as I'm sure others out there might agree... another reason I will value this forum is so I can practice a bit of social interaction ;-)

Hi Mary and welcome.
I enjoyed browsing your web site a lot! You do a very creative work.
I loved your etchings.

Thanks Claudemir! Glad you like the etchings - I've only just started to get back to printmaking recently and am loving the exercise of such a different discipline - it has really opened up a seam of ideas that thankfully is feeding back into my painting... so its doubly useful!

Sympathies with your artists block Garth, I hope it passes soon, I know how horrible it can be - is it unusual for you to get a blocked phase or is it that its lasting longer than normal?

I get them as pretty regular phases and have to remind myself to ease off on trying to push through them... (that way madness lies I think!) last time it happened for me I was pushing too hard trying to come up with ideas for a show... luckily starting etching again moved my focus and freed things up.

Marina, I know you mean it in the sense of taking too much time but there's nothing "dreadful" about your technique by a long shot!!! Has your extended break from painting left you with plenty of ideas for what you now want to do or is it hard to "get the juices flowing" as it were?

Hi Mary Jane, your working is amazing, I hope to learn lots from you! Welcome.

Mary Jane,
by dreadful technique I mean that I painted my trompe l'oeil with a very very thin brush, filling a square centimeter until it was finished and then beginning another square centimeter. It finally worked because some of them are not too bad. ( I know it's a success when people don't notice it in the beginning, and then go closer and closer and finally try to touch it )
I prefer to think that I didn't lost my time during the years I didn't paint, and that I needed to acquire some maturity...(sometimes difficult to convince myself)
Finally during those 6 last months, I feel more alive than ever. And discovering this forum helped me not only technically but I don't feel too much isolated in my studio. I'm just beginnig to be able to control my brush enough to express what I want, and I regret that my days are so short because I have too many ideas. I never had an artist block yet (Garth, I hope you will go out from yours soon...) I always thought that my best work is the next one, and I generally lose a little concentration at the end of a painting because I 'm impatient to begin the next one. And seeing some work like yours give me a hundred ideas!

Welcome, Mary Jane! I hope we will be seeing more of our work. The one you posted here and the paintings on your web page are just tantalizing glimpses. Hope you have a sold-out show! I'm going a little crazy myself with a couple of collaborative shows looming up and landscape work to finish for a gallery. It does get crazy!

Looking forward to your participation in the Forum,

Alex

Greetings from Epsom Mary Jane, great to see another UK member.

You're perhaps too busy with preparations for your show, but a few of us are planning to meet up at the RP exhibition on the 29th April, there's a thread here:

http://forum.portraitartist.com/showthread.php?t=6866

If you can spare some time from producing those jaw dropping paintings it would be nice to see you.

Paul

Welcome to the forum, Mary Jane.

Your paintings are beautifully and I wish you success with the coming show.
Afterward you will mingle with us, right ?

Allan

Welcome, Mary Jane,

You appear to have a toughtful and original approach to the figurative.

I look forward to your participation.

Good luck with your show!

Thank you all for such a lovely welcome, there's such a great community feeling here its wonderful!

Alexandra, all the best too for you own shows and you're so right about it getting crazy sometimes!

I started to sit down to reply here about 10 hours ago but just had to keep going back to the painting... now I am looking forward to a really good browse looking more at all your fab work.

Paul, thank you for the invite I will certainly get in touch and come along if I can - would be great to meet up with the fellow UK'ers!!

Marina,

It's very interesting to hear you talk about picking the finest brush and finishing each tiny area in turn, that's what I do when I'm focusing perhaps too hard on detail... but I'm not surprised your viewers wanted to touch your beautiful paintings!

I couldn't agree more with your regret about the days being too short for our ideas and your feeling that the next piece will always be the best and the temptation to start the next before the last is even finished, I think that's the spur that keeps us striving to be better, I hope I'm still feeling that urge when I'm a dodery old artist pottering around in my 80's;-)

Mary Jane, I had a wonderful time looking through your website just now. I love that you paint both figuratives and portraits and that you are succeeding on both counts. Good luck on your show and welcome to the Forum!

Thanks Linda - great to have your welcome, you would certainly know a thing or two about succeeding on both counts! I book marked your site long ago and check back regularly! Great stuff.

All the best.

Hi Mary Jane,
sorry for being so late in spotting this thread as I was away.
I consider myself a UK member despite being here only since seven years.
Welcome, I hope you will be able to contribute with your clearly very deep knowledge.
Maybe you will be able to come and see the RSPP show? It starts this Thursday until the 14th.
Looking forward to your posts
Ilaria

Hi Ilaria - nice to hear from another UK member... and congratulations on your entry in the RSPP by the way, I did it last year and it was great fun to do - and especially interesting to see the vast variety of work on show!

Hope it goes very well for you!

Hi Mary Jane,
You will be an asset to this forum...and by the way you do lovely work.

I have many fond memories of Brighton from some of my several visits to England. it has been many years since I have been there and I would love to visit again someday.

Again welcome!

Hi Richard - what a lovely thing to say! Thank you:-)

Glad to hear Brighton cast its spell on you too, I love it, we are just about to have our annual arts festival, one of the best things being the Artists Open Houses for the last 25 years during each weekend in May around 180 (and growing!) artists open their homes and studios to the public, showing and selling their own and other artists work... its an absolutely wonderful event here... did you ever get a chance to visit any on your trips here? I'd highly recommend it! If you do come let me know and I'll tell you all the best ones to visit!!