Vuleka Art Competition

It was an eye opener! My two artworks were NOT chosen to be exhibited, so I will try not to criticize or sound bitter. But looking at what were chosen, I have to ask myself "What is art?" "Who decides that?" I must admit that there were a number of pieces where I stood still and admired the skill and time that must have gone in there. But then there were pieces that would really give anyone nightmares. What is ART? Is it art to display 7 plates you bought at a pawnshop? It is a different story if you were the one that made those plates. But who am I to judge, I do not have a degree in fine arts.

One thing I have decided last night was, that I will not compromise. I will enter competitions, but I will not paint weird stuff that I think would impress the judges. I will work hard, I will learn, I will grow in skills, AND I will only paint from the heart. I will create paintings that people would look at and say "I would mind having that against a wall in my house."

I believe this is one of those that came from the heart:

We have a date!!! - 27 Oct

My house is full of canvasses. Some are finished, some unfinished and now I have just bought 20 more. Like I mentioned last time, Simonette and I are preparing for our exhibition. And we have now decided on a date - 27 October 2012. So if you are anywhere near Bellville, Cape Town, on that day - don't miss it! There will be something for everyone, from abstract, impressionistic, realistic and so on. We have also asked 3 other artists to join us. All the work will be made very affordable for anyone. As I said everything is fresh from the easel, you will not see work that have been posted here or on the web, or that have been at previous exhibitions. Everything is new and remember the latest work is normally also the best work to date.

There will be a painting to be won on the day. Tickets will be available at R50 each and you will stand a chance to win a painting by myself worth R2500. Attendants will also stand a chance to draw discount vouchers of up to 20% on any painting

Let me just mention that this exhibition is not a sale of stuff we cannot get rid of. We want to make it possible for any person to own original oil and acrylic paintings.

I will keep you posted, for now, we are just working (painting) very hard.

Work in progress...

It is HARD work to become Renoir - one has to read, learn, do, practise, paint, redo, learn more and start all over again. To be able to sell more paintings in your lifetime than Vincent had, you also have to spend a LOT of time doing market research, marketing, planning, and that takes time away from creating and learning how to create. And then you also have to do the boring things that bring in some money now so that you can eat.  So I am sorry I haven't been here on the blog for a few weeks, I have been busy with all those other things.

BUT, the exciting news is that, first of all, I have entered another competition with 2 of my paintings. The Wild Horse of a previous post, and my guitar man, I Play the Songs. I will only  know by next Wednesday whether any or both were chosen to be exhibited. There were apparently more than 300 entries. I will tell you next week what the outcome was.

The other exciting thing is that a friend and I are planning an exhibition of our latest works - most are still to be created. It will be a very colourful display with a summer theme. It will be held on a Saturday in October. We must still decide on the exact date. If you are in or near Cape Town you would not want to miss that. There will be the usual snacks and wine, or coffee or tea if you wish, but there will also be a number of other exiting surprises.

So my friend, Simonette, and I are very busy painting and preparing for the exhibition. Tuesdays are our painting days where we come together to paint at my house and in the evening at painting class. Here is pic of Simonette busy with one of her works. You can also see the fire burning in the background to braai some sausage for us for lunch.

The next pic is one of mine where I have just finished the under-painting. This one is actually an experiment with complementary colours, so red will become green, yellow will become purple, orange will become blue. This is a scene of the Overberg near Caledon. With all the rain that they had there, the landscape is absolutely beautiful with the canola full in flower. I will only post a pic of the finished painting after the exhibition has ended. In fact I will add a page to my website with pics of all the paintings with exhibition prices for the ones not sold on the day.

I will keep you posted concerning our exhibition!!!! So keep coming back to this blog!
Please if anyone has some more ideas to make an exhibition a success, please comment!

"I play the songs" is available: