The Blackbird Sings

Cupola Contemporary Art Christmas Exhibition | Under Starry Skies 1 & 2

Just a quick post this morning to tell you that I have two new night landscape paintings in a show opening tonight at a lovely gallery in Sheffield.

Under Starry Skies 1 & 2 are available from Cupola Contemporary Art, Hillsborough, Sheffield - the opening of the exhibition is tonight from 7:30pm. For more details or to contact the gallery, please visit their website: www.cupolagallery.com

Under Starry Skies 1

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 12x12"

© Natasha Newton 2011

Under Starry Skies 2

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 12x12"

© Natasha Newton 2011

I'll be back soon with the blog post I promised you the other day, and more new work! Have a good weekend. x

Oh, and one last thing - how cute are these two? Issey & Ruby are having to wear cone-shaped collars at the moment after each having an operation at the vets this week. They're finding it almost impossible to clean themselves, but Ruby is trying her best to give Issey's head a bit of a wash. :)

Chelsea Art Fair Paintings

After a ridiculously busy ten days since I last updated the blog, I can finally show you the finished pieces for the upcoming Chelsea Art Fair in London, where I'm being represented by McAllister Thomas Fine Art for the first time.

In the end I didn't have time to finish the large 100x100cm canvas I started (that particular piece will be going to another gallery when finished) but I did make four paintings that are actually fairly large for me, ranging from 50x40cm up to 60x60cm. I decided upon four bird paintings for this collection, and you'll see how these pieces are gradually evolving from my previous work as I start to incorporate some of my more recent ideas. I would have loved to have shown some of my landscapes too, but another time perhaps!

All of these paintings are only available through McAllister Thomas Fine Art, so please contact the gallery for details. If you'd like to go to the Chelsea Art Fair to see the pieces for real, it's on from 1st-3rd April. You can find more information here.

A Magical World

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 20x20"/50x50cm

© Natasha Newton 2011

(Detail)

© Natasha Newton 2011

Looking at the Constellations

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 20x20"/50x50cm

© Natasha Newton 2011

(Detail)

© Natasha Newton 2011

Bird Portrait 1: Constellation Bird

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 20x16"/50x40cm

© Natasha Newton 2011

The Escape

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 24x24"/60x60cm

© Natasha Newton 2011

(Detail)

© Natasha Newton 2011

Happy New Year! New Work and a New Gallery...

Happy 2011! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year - I certainly did. It can be summed up in five F's: family, food, fire, films and frost. We had a really cold Christmas here in Suffolk, and even though we didn't have any more snow, it was a white Christmas anyway with frost that lasted all day for several days and even some icicles! I spent many a happy hour in front of the log fire playing Trivial Pursuit with Cris (my brother) and munching my way through an assortment of festive goodies.

It was great to be able to relax for a few days - after the busy year I've had it felt like such a luxury! But on Monday 27th December I returned to my artwork for a few days to prepare for a meeting with the Snape Maltings Gallery in Suffolk on the 30th. They contacted me several months ago after discovering my work online and wanted to know whether I would be interested in exhibiting with them. While I was in Paris in November we finally arranged a date to meet upon my return to Suffolk, so that I could show them a few examples of my work in person. To cut a long story short, it was a fantastic meeting and they were really excited by the artwork - they took all five pieces there and then, and they're also keen to have some larger paintings when I can supply them! I have very few available pieces at the moment (everything has either sold, or the few pieces I do have are at other galleries), so I'll try to get more work to them as soon as I can. In the meantime, here are the five pieces currently on display at the gallery - if you are interested in purchasing any of them, please visit their website for contact details.

I'm thrilled to be exhibiting there - alongside artists such as the great Maggi Hambling CBE - and I had actually been meaning to contact the gallery myself for a long time but just never got around to it. In the end they found me instead! :)

Watching The Rain

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 10x10"

© Natasha Newton 2010

The Bird and the Trees 5

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 6x6"

© Natasha Newton 2010

Butterfly 4

Original painting on paper. 7x5"

© Natasha Newton 2010

The Bird and the Trees 4

Original painting on paper. 6x4"

© Natasha Newton 2010

Imaginary Forest 1

Original ink illustration on paper. 7x5"

© Natasha Newton 2010

Four New Paintings

I've been a busy little bee recently - alongside working on several commissions and new pieces for my shop, I've also been working on a set of four night-time paintings for the upcoming show at Atelier Klint on the beautiful island of Sylt, off the coast of Northern Germany.

These took a little longer than planned and in the end I was really rushing to finish them on time. The initial piece I was working on for the exhibition went completely pear-shaped and so I had to throw it away; a very annoying situation because it meant that several days worth of work were wasted, putting me behind schedule. Painting is a strange thing - sometimes it just flows; everything comes together easily with what seems like the minimum of effort and I'm able to finish pieces quickly.....and other times it just doesn't. During the difficult sessions no matter how hard I try I can do no right; even when I think I've found the solution to a problem, it will still go wrong. I can sometimes waste days trying to 'fix' certain paintings - the trick is to know when to give up and just start again on a fresh canvas.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the four pieces for the show (to view full-size, please click on each individual image):

Keeping The Home Fires Burning 3

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 12x12"

© Natasha Newton 2010

November Forest

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 12x12"

© Natasha Newton 2010

Keeping The Home Fires Burning 4

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 12x12"

© Natasha Newton 2010

Josiah Watches The Night Sky

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 12x12"

© Natasha Newton 2010

All are available for sale, and the show starts this Sunday (10th October), continuing until 26th November.

I'm just sorry I can't be there in person this time, but Peter (the organiser of the show and owner of Atelier Klint) has promised to post some photographs on the internet for me - I can't wait to see how the paintings look in the gallery space. I'll keep you posted!

Thank you!

I can't thank all of you enough for the kind and thoughtful messages and comments you've sent to me since I posted my previous blog. I've been totally overwhelmed with them via email, Twitter (publicly and privately), and of course here on the blog too. I never expected to get this kind of a response from people, and it's very touching how so many of you have shared your personal experiences and stories with me. I appreciate all of the advice you've given and have read each comment intently. I appreciate them very much.

I'll be back soon with some new work to show you as well as news of a new venture I'm launching this Autumn, but for now I'll just share this snapshot of some recent work (some of it is still in progress, as you can see!), and a poster made by Peter Klint advertising my upcoming show at Atelier Klint on the island of Sylt, Northern Germany, next month...