19 July 2010 London Lives

I have entered a competition for 'Paintings of London'.

The comp is held by the Guardian newspaper in conjunction with Bankside Gallery and other sponsors. It just seemed right up my street.

I found an unfinished canvas with some nice abstract colours already on, and then I looked and looked at it to see what might be in there. Nothing!

So I tried it the other way up, and the possibility of this new London image came to me.

'London Dawn'.

Here it is.

10 July 2010 Builders, and post op recovery.

Since the previous blog I have had an organ removed by keyhole surgery. So now I am minus a stone filled gal bladder.

All is well, thanks to Fran who has been an attentive nurse. She also managed to toil away in a parched garden with spectacular success. [See picture of garden steps today.]

Making good use of the glorious weather our builders have been in and ripped out plaster and coving caused by water seeping through from outside. At the same time the conservatory roof has been taken down and a new one is being installed with proper lead-work to avoid the problem happening again.

While I am in recovery mode, I have revamped the crabfish.com website, and created a new colinruffell.com website.

So no new paintings.

20 June 2010 Fathers Day

Just look at these super roses cascading down in front of my studio today.

Today is Fathers Day here in the UK. We are expecting all our children and grandchildren over here for a Sunday lunch in one hours time. The joint is in the oven, the roast spuds also. Other veggies are prepared for steaming, and Fran is cutting chard from her veggie beds as I write this. The sun is shining, birds are singing, all is well. Hooray!

At last we have written up all the contacts that we made during the Open House in May.
539 visitors entered for our free prize draw, of which 458 left email addresses.
So yesterday I sent a 'welcome to the list' message to those 450 who did not win a free framed print.
48 emails bounced which probably means that our interpretation of the written address is faulty. We have got to check that. So if you filled in a card, didn't win, and didn't get an email yesterday, please let me know.

31 May 2010 The final three winners are...

The three final winners of our prize draw have looked at our website and picked their prize. Hollie Vicars, has chosen a framed signed giclee print by Shyama titled 'Lazy Days'.Karen Powell has chose framed signed giclee print 'Cat and Gramophone' by Colin Ruffell. Katie Salvidge has chosen an Artists Proof of 'Misty Farm' by Fran Slade, [this is a new print that is not yet in the catalogue, or on our website www.crabfish.com].
Here are the three prints. One by Daddy Artist, one by Mummy Artist and one by Daughter Artist.

24 May 2010 And another winner..

And here is another winner, Elena Thompson with her choice of framed limited edition.

24 May 2010 Its all over!

The Artists Open House 2010 event has finished. Here is another of our prize draw winners with her choice of free framed edition print.
Christina Ure chose one of Shyama's flower pieces.

14 May 2010 Coalition huh!

The news talk of the week has been the formation of a coalition government here in the UK. For our overseas readers, this is a new situation for us. Except for a spell during WW2, the British system has steadily provided a change of government every few years, switching from a right of centre party [the Conservatives] to a left of centre party [the Labour Party]. Following elections 9 days ago we have a new government made up from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats [who?] because the Conservatives failed to get enough seats in parliament to have a working majority.
Meanwhile here in Brighton we elected the first and only Green Member of Parliament.
Brighton is a whacky bohemian and extraordinary place ain't it?
What has this got to do with art at crabfish.com, or this Fine Art Blog.
Nothing really, I just thought I would let you know one reason why I haven't been telling you more about our Open House show here at 182 Springfield Road. It's because everybody has been focusing on something else, including me.
So, let me report on the last two weekends of Artists Open Houses here in Brighton.
Firstly, we are now half way through. There are only two more weekends to go. Tomorrow 15th May, Sunday 16th May, and then Saturday and Sunday 22nd and 23rd. That's it. No one will be open on the last weekend in May. Well we won't anyway.
Secondly, the visitor numbers perked up last weekend, despite the election result crisis. We sold some original paintings, and lots of prints and cards. We gathered almost twice as many entries to our prize draw as the bad-weather first weekend. As chance would have it, the two winners are both known to us here. One is a young neighbour who already lives in a house with a major piece of Fran Slade art bought by her wise and wonderful parents a couple of years ago, and the other is an artist who has exhibited in her own Open House as part of the Fiveways Artists Group. Both were drawn randomly from the cards filled in by visitors. So you see that anyone can win, just turn up, fill in an entry card, and cross your fingers.
We hope to see YOU here during the next [last] two weekends.
Todays picture is 'Brighton Bandstand', which was chosen by Patricia Cunliffe our first winner this year.