8) We have lift-off

On Monday morning a small team of artists assembled at North End Printers to collect all the publicity material for Open Up 2007. Its quite a major task for Sharon (Project Manager), collating the numbers of each item requested by the artists – A3 & A4 posters, flyers, full colour brochures, questionnaire sheets and a hints and tips leaflet. The printers help by counting the items and packaging according to postal district. Each volunteer then takes the packages for one of the districts and sorts them into carrier bags for each of their artists. These are then taken to Crookesmoor Community Centre on Saturday for the participants to meet over a cup of coffee and collect their material.
It’s time to start thinking about my mailing list. Over the past year I’ve got more organised and now I keep a record of people who visited last year or have bought a painting during the year. I tend to find that people happily give their consent to go on my mailing list and I stress that this is not just about selling paintings but the opportunity to meet up again and for them to see how things have progressed over the year. The colour brochures are a bit heavy to send through the post but I deliver quite a few by hand and distribute a large number to The Sheffield Society for the Encouragement of Art, Hallam Art Group and the Country Market (formerly WI) at Broomhill. They really are lovely brochures and I enjoy going through it each year.
This year I noticed that two artists living close to me have dropped out, which is a shame. It will be interesting to see whether that has any bearing on the numbers who visit.
My son has wasted no time scanning the new dates and logo into the blog – “Thankyou” to Peter, so it really is full-steam ahead now.
The future’s pink, very pink – let’s hope its rosy too!

7) Danger- Photographer at large

Had a satisfying morning framing up a couple of paintings and then went on in the afternoon to plan what I’m going to do next week. I’d like to get one more picture done before the Easter holidays so I spent quite a long time printing out animal photos and then manipulating them on the computer.
Digital photography has proved invaluable for my work as you can click away, delete what you don’t want and then manipulate the image as required. I used to have to take my photos down to town to get them resized but now I can do it all at the click of a button. Nor do I have to wait until the film is finished before I can show them to a client and we can identify possible poses. I reckon that I probably need to take 30 – 50 photos to come up with two or three which are really special, and the rest are invaluable resource material. Like people, animals have characteristic poses and expressions and I’ve learned to check which photos are representative of that particular animal.
I use three different cameras for different purposes – the Fuji digital for everyday use, an old Olympus SLR for recording each painting I produce (it produces much better close-up pictures than the digital and can be operated manually so that I can compensate for poorer indoor light) and an even older camera of my father’s which I use to take slides for illustrating talks.My biggest photographic problem is obtaining wildlife pictures that are of sufficient quality for my detailed work. I would eventually love a digital SLR with x8 optical zoom, but they don’t come cheap! People at art group are very helpful in passing on material which they think I might be able to use but I have to be very careful not to infringe copyright. I’m not in the league where I can afford to pay the going rate (about £70 I believe) for a photograph from a professional wildlife photographer. I have, however, teamed up with an amateur, but very gifted, photographer from Dronfield whom I met through an “A Rocha” Members’ day – an exciting Christian Conservation Charity. He, very graciously, lets me use some of his work for a nominal charge. Thanks to him I have acquired some lovely photos of birds, particularly owls, robins and kingfishers and some animals too.

6) Concerning gardens and insurance

Beautiful Spring day today, although air still quite cool. Lots of activity in the pond and first frogspawn laid on Monday. Blue tits investigating the bird box with a view to seasonal rental. Makes me want to get out in the garden and start tidying up, but I’ve set myself the target of finishing a picture of two cats today. Open Up will be with us before we can blink and I want to get one more original painting done next week. Then I can spend the time over Easter framing work up and cutting endless mounts for the new prints. I also want to spend some time on the garden, the grass is ready for its first cut and I like the garden to be tidy enough to give pleasure when people visit for Open Up. My studio is on the first floor, which doubles as a conservatory and has a fantastic light. It also has a lovely view of the garden and I really enjoy watching the wild birds on the feeders and watching the garden change with the seasons. Its very much a spring garden, with lots of bulbs, azaleas and camellias, so it looks its best in early May, and from a distance you can’t tell the difference between grass and moss.
The big problem with our house is having an upstairs studio. Firstly, its totally inaccessible for the disabled and secondly, it adds further risks when opening up to the public. Until last year, Open Up took out public liability insurance for its participating artists/venues, but each year the premium climbed and it was limited to one claim. I contacted my household insurance company to see about cover last year but the add-on premium for the event was exorbitant. However, through the networking meeting held by Open Up this January, I had the chance to discuss the issue with other participants. It would seem that Gold Membership of the Society for all Artists (SAA), based in Newark, gives the best deal for what I’m looking for. I was already an ordinary member so for an extra £20 I am now covered for Public Liability 365 days/ year. This means that I’m not only covered for Open Up but also for when people visit to arrange commissions, choose frames or come for tuition. It pains me to have to live and work in such a litigious world but that’s how things are, and peace of mind is worth a lot!

5) Branching Out

Incredibly hectic week this week, only managed about three hours of art, but I have got the owl finished that I mentioned in a previous blog.
As a family we provide Homestay accommodation for Sheffield Hallam University and presently have a French student teacher with us for a month. Consequently, I’ve had to put a bit more effort into meals and housework. We really enjoy meeting the different people and it fits in well with working from home. The income evens out the drop in sales during the winter months. It was also my week to cook for the elderly people’s club at church so I’ve also been busy shopping and preparing a meal for 90+.
However, back to business…..
During Open Up in 2006 several visitors asked me if I had any cards or prints for sale, as they liked my work but were not in the market for original paintings. From my experiences producing charity Christmas cards for the Sheffield Branch of Riding for The Disabled, I knew that it wasn’t easy to make money on cards unless you had a good distribution network, enabling you to turn over large numbers. Not only is there the cost of the printing but also the expense of envelopes, cellophane wrappers and labelling. Because my paintings are detailed, they take quite a long time to complete and it isn’t always possible to charge as much as I would like (taking into consideration outgoings on frames, hanging fees and commission). However, I picked up a flyer on Giclee printing during “Art in the Garden” and on further enquiry discovered that they were not that expensive, especially if two pictures can be fitted side by side onto an A3 scanner.
Producing prints, therefore, seemed to be one way in which I could maximise my income from carefully chosen paintings which might appeal to a wider audience.
I took the first two paintings to the Printer in November to see how they turned out (I’d had mixed results from standard photocopying of artwork, and pastel paintings are a bit vulnerable at the best of times). I was delighted with the accuracy of the colour and the fact that they still looked like pastels. I was also very pleased to see that the original paintings were handled with due care and respect. Consequently, four more pictures followed and I’ve just delivered another two for scanning this week.
Cutting the mounts and packaging them up is time consuming but I keep a tenplate for each one that saves re-measuring every time. I’m hoping that I’ve gauged the market correctly and that the prints prove popular, not only for Open Up but also when I exhibit with The “Crosspool Artists” as an invited guest. Its all a steep learning curve!

4) Why Animals?

In the early days my career as an artist happened more by chance than any specific planning on my part. I had studied Art/ Art History as one of my “A” Levels and after leaving school continued to do the occasional architectural landscape in charcoal. In my early twenties, my parents gave me a wonderful box of 72 Faber Castell pastels, this inspired me to take my art more seriously and in 1988, whilst on maternity leave, I sold my first painting in The Great Sheffield Art Show.
I had always planned to return to my career as a State Registered Physiotherapist after having the children but bit by bit I became more involved in the art and the flexibility that working from home gave. At this time I was also very privileged to be encouraged by a friend and her husband who bought quite a number of my early paintings and made me believe that I had a saleable product. It reminded me of the essential role of “patrons” down the ages.
At this time I was continuing with architectural landscapes (have you ever noticed how many statues there are on the roof of Chatsworth House?) and also doing large flower paintings in pastel. The move into animals came about several years later when I discovered a lovely photograph of a fox in a Readers Digest publication and decided to have a go at it. It worked out incredibly well – even though I did it on such a scrap of paper that I’ve never been able to mount it up to its best advantage. If it hadn’t turned out to my satisfaction I doubt I would have ever tried another animal and certainly wouldn’t be taking part in Open Up now!
I still enjoy landscapes – in fact I’m trying a few seascapes at the moment after selling three pictures of Flamborough Head. They give me a bit of relaxation after a run of animal paintings because I can ad lib and it doesn’t have to be correct to the nearest millimetre! I still do the occasional flower painting when I feel the need to exchange my usual browns and greens for something more flamboyant.

If you would like to share something on this blog why not Email me and I will endeavour to post some of the material received and make it more interactive.

3) Inspired by snow

The recent snowfalls have inspired me to do a winter picture of a barn owl and I’ve been out with my digital camera on three occasions. We may not have this much snow for several years to come so it was an opportunity too good to miss. We had several days with keen hoar frost and clear blue skies and this colouring should work well with the complimentary orange colouring on the owl. I’ve already got a good photograph of an owl which I took several years ago at a bird of prey display. I love painting owls and find that they are very saleable, but placing it in a snowy landscape is a new challenge for me. I also collected various bits of the winter hedgerow – aniseed, cow parsley and knapweed seed heads to work directly from. I really enjoy the challenge of this sort of work and greatly admire Helen Parsley’s hedgerows but find that it is very time consuming - usually the background takes much longer than the animal which is the main subject of my picture. At the moment I have the vision for the picture, only time will if I can pull it off over the next week or two.
I do find that being enthusiastic about my subject matter is vital – I’ve got to want to do it, so this is an important factor when choosing what to do next. Obviously, when it comes to commissions I don’t have ultimate control over the choice of photo to work from or the composition, and I feel that it is very important that the client gets the painting they want. I can, however influence that decision to a certain degree and usually people welcome that input.

2) Taking a break

I’ve had a total rest from my art this week as we went away for a family holiday near Swanage, in Dorset. Looking at the winter wonderland on the Friday night, I wondered whether we would ever manage to leave Sheffield but the snow turned to rain overnight and it was fine.

I’ve always tried to have a break from my art during school holidays. Firstly, when the children were small I knew I couldn’t concentrate on detailed painting whilst keeping an eye on them, and I didn’t want to get ratty every time I was broken off. Secondly, I didn’t want them to feel that my art was more important than they are. They grow up so fast and before you know it they’re about to leave home! They’re fifteen and seventeen now but I still try not to start any new work and just potter around doing some framing and mounting. This works well for me as it stops me developing “burnout” and at the end of the holiday I can’t wait to get going again.

January to April is the time of the year when I’m busy building up a new body of work for the various exhibitions. I’ve just submitted my application for this year’s Open Up event and I’m aware that the next three months will fly by. I had a phone call just before we came away from one of the other artists in my patch, so that we could coordinate our opening days. It really does attract visitors if they can visit several venues in the same locality and I’ve enjoyed getting to know some of the artists in my area through this means. This year I’ve refreshed my artwork summary for the Open Up brochure (that’s not easy in under twenty words) and I debated long and hard what photograph to use. I finally settled on a cat portrait (it was a dog last year and an otter the year before). No doubt it will attract the cat lovers this year.

1) Open Up Sheffield - Introduction

Welcome to the brand new “Open Up Sheffield” blog – a weekly diary from the perspective of one particular artist taking part in the 2007 event.
Its not that I’m special in any way, in a mad moment I just put my head above the parapet and volunteered because it sounded fun!

Firstly, let me introduce myself. My name is Anne Turk and this is the third year that I have taken part in Open Up Sheffield. In 2005 I felt that the time had come to advertise my work more actively and I really liked what I saw of the beautiful colour brochure which is produced for the event.
I also thought that it would be rather nice to use it as an opportunity to invite friends and neighbours round so that I could explain how my artwork was produced and they could enjoy coffee and a chat at the same time.

Being able to show people how you make your art, the processes involved and the skills you acquire over time is, in my view, one of the great strengths of Open Up. Its not just about putting on an exhibition in order to sell your work but rather an opportunity to interact with interested people (I find that many of the visitors are themselves amateur craftspeople) and giving them the opportunity to handle the materials and ask lots of questions. You also get some fascinating interaction between visitors, and no two conversations are the same.
I hope that this first instalment holds something of interest for the reader – I thought next week that I’d tell you a bit about applying for the event.