The big day has finally arrived!

As this post is published, I will hopefully be hobnobbing with the great and good of the watercolour world at the private view of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London.

The exhibition runs until the 8th April and, should you be in the vicinity, is well worth a visit, less so for seeing my humble contribution than those of all the other talented artists whose work will be on display. I’m hoping to be able to spend quite a bit of time there at the private view and have my fingers crossed that I’ll be able to meet and say hello to quite a few artists that I hold in the highest esteem!

Last week I spoke about my frustration of travelling all the way to London to deliver my painting and lugging all of my painting equipment with me, only to lug it all the way back home again without ever taking it out of my bag!

This painting is based on a photograph I took while in St James’s Park, near to the Mall Galleries, just after I’d delivered my painting. I was mulling around the park, looking for a view and wondering if it was worth me trying to paint anything, or whether it was just too damp and rainy to risk it. There was a brief respite in the showers and I got a few reference photos to work from in the comfort and dryness of home. Here’s my attempt at capturing that particular break in the showers:

Next up is a landscape painting that I was drawn to, I think, because I was desperately awaiting the arrival of spring! We’re booked to go camping at Easter, in the UK, and the rain has been so incessant during March that the campsite is an absolute quagmire. I know this because we visited it at the weekend to do a recce and to try to reserve one of the less muddy pitches. Sadly, there weren’t any ‘less muddy pitches’ as they’re all equally ankle deep in mud!

It made me try to will spring to arrive and hopefully dry out the ground just enough to be able to secure our tent and, perhaps, prevent us from getting trenchfoot! I think that’s what drew me to this particular view:

Now this feel’s like a landscape that I’d like to camp in!

I didn’t actually enjoy painting this I’m sad to say. Some paintings are a joy from start to finish, and some are more of a battle from start to finish. This one was more of a battle and, I can’t help thinking that this is a battle that I lost!

It’s not totally without its moments, but overall, what I mainly see when I look at it are all the things that frustrated me whilst I painted it. All of those elements that I wrestled with, or rather wrestled against! But as the saying goes, you can’t win them all! I’ll hopefully have a nice time celebrating something that I ‘did win’ with my acceptance to the RIPW exhibition, then I’ll dust myself and my paintbrushes down and start all over again.