Exhibition at the Art Barn

It has been quite intense with the Art Barn in Preston Baggot, Warickshire, where I have 10 paintings at the moment, and the exhibition goes on until the 4th October, and the weekend of Melbourne Art Festival. Both exhibitions co inciding which meant a lot of work inbetween the holidays and before and after the holidays. At the Melbourne arts festival I had about 16 paintings displayed.

This is how the art barn looks from the back

 
It is part of the old rectory in preston baggot and the barn has been converted into a art gallery for last eight years now. I exhibited there in 2010 and this year I was thrilled to be invited back.

I took lot of photographs before the opening of the private view as it gets very busy and difficult later on.

After delivering the paintings at the art barn we went for a little walk around. It is beautiful surrounding.

Little Emily just loved to play around their huge garden area.

A lot of running around.

Then we took this path just behind the front lawn where Emily was playing for a stroll.

We passed the gate.

Passed the church.

And reached the wheat field.

 Yes, daddy and little girl played hide and seek.

I bet you cant spot daddy here in the above picture.

OH! you found him. That was difficult, wasn't it?

Emily was very keen to see the wheat grains.

Later that week was the private view. Exciting when people start pouring in.

The exhibition looked fantastic.These 4 paintings on the wall are my work. The sculptures are Petra Rohr-Rouendaal's, who lived quite a long time in Africa and her work is influenced from it.

Few more of my paintings. These are Encaustic mixed media work.

More sculptures and paintings from Petra.

Some Raku pottery work from Rika who came all the way from Botswana.

Another painter and jewellers work.

A very good combination of art and craft work which will be on until the 4th October. If you do get a chance to be in Warwickshire please do have a look at the exhibition. You wont be disappointed for sure.

All the pottery work is making me so itchy to try my hands in pottery once again. I keep thinking of it but haven't got enough time for now but maybe this is something I want to have along with my paintings in future. Hmmmmm, long term planning is going on here.

Well, enjoy your day and I will be back next with the Melbourne arts festival photographs. Thank you to all those people, who are now following me on Instagram. I am really enjoying Instagram as its lot quicker than blogging.

I feel alive when I am painting

"I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn't say any other way... Things I had no words for" - Georgia O'Keeffe

Being busy with the things I like the most is such lovely feeling. I have been mostly in my studio lately every minute possibly I could. Its not long now before I have a group exhibition in the art barn in Warwickshire and the Melbourne Arts Festival in Derbyshire.

This year its going to be my 7th year that I have been participating the Melbourne Arts Festival and every year I am so excited and look forward to it. Love seeing lots of new faces every year and many familiar faces from past. It is so nice to get the feed back face to face.

About the group exhibition, now I exhibited at Art Barn in 2010 and this year I was invited back to exhibit with few other artists whose work is influenced by different cultures or countries. Sunday, I have to deliver my work.

Can you believe me. On top of these two exhibitions I took up the thirty paintings in 30 days challenge. Phew... Well, let me put it up like this. I feel alive when I am painting. The above little painting was done in one of my altered journals for this 30/30 challenge. I have done something almost everyday but haven't managed to upload everywhere in the social media. Now that's too much work and I love the creative part but when it comes to being active everywhere in social media, it gets bit too much for me. I don't know how some people manage it all. So I have been uploading in the Instagram everyday my 30/30 painting challenge and you can follow me with the account name sujata.aten.art. I must say Instagram is a lot quicker than blogging or anything else and I love it.

The last thing before I go back in my studio and do a little bit of more work, I am very happy that my calendars for 2016 (all my paintings are mostly sold) has arrived before the Melbourne festival. Every year people ask me for cards and calendars so I thought I must give it a go this year.

Thirty Paintings in 30 Days - Day 4

Mixed media on altered journal - Thirty paintings in 30 Days - Day 4

(Close-up)

Wow! another days challenge done. I am happy. This little mixed media painting is done on a altered old book. I love painting on them. The paper is so nice to work on. I prefer old books over the shop bought sketchbooks. I have used here my rust dyed fabrics, vintage lace, some hand stitching and acrylic paint. Day 4 - Thirty paintings in 30 Days done.

Thirty Paintings in 30 Days: day 3

Thirty paintings in 30 days challenge - Day 3

(sorry these images are a bit blurry here, I don't understand why)

We can see the shift in the weather and now I think I am also so ready for this shift from holiday to work time. I'm  really grateful for the fact that I  enjoy my work, instead of it being a chore.
I have hung my little prayer flag in my studio and another one in my little caravan. I have ordered more paints and canvases and am all ready for spending my hours in my studio again.

I am almost prepared for one of the art exhibitions starting this month but still not quite ready for the Melbourne Arts Festival. Have loads to do and guess what? I have thrown myself into a 30 days painting challenge. Do I have time for it? Can I do it you think amongst the preparation of other exhibitions. Well, this is it! I decided to give it a shot and joined in with other artists in making 30 paintings in 30 days. It started on 1st September already, I am a bit late but you know what? Better late than never. I am going to keep it small and going to paint on my altered journal pages for this challenge. The aim is not to have a finished big painting, but this will take me in my studio everyday and force me to do something. Once I start painting there is no stopping me anyway. So hopefully I shall be able to do some more work for the Melbourne festival as well. This thirty paintings in 30 days is by Leslie Saeta from Slices of Life Blog.

One more thing I need to tell you lovely people reading my blog is that I also have dipped into Instagram finally. Yes, I say finally because for long time, I have been debating whether or not to join as I wasn't sure if I will be able to keep up with all the different social medias. For a while, I almost gave up Facebook too. But now I feel brave. Feel I can maybe handle all this so please dear readers follow me on my Instagram and Facebook and please don't be shy to leave a comment, as my comment box is open and working again here in my blog. I had some problems in past but have resolved them now.

A big hug and thank you to all of you for reading my blog. I am planning a giveaway soon so do remember to check it out here.

Camping in South Wales

Bank holiday and camping seemed like a good idea.

We tried to make the most of the English summer. Weather forecast was not fantastic for Sunday and Monday but Saturday looked ok. We packed up and decided to go to south of wales.

We camped in  the National Showcaves Centre for Wales. Once everything was set up and the wood burner was on....

...we toasted for a good weekend.

Ate pasta...

...and the girls roasted marshmallows for pudding.

Almost forgot to mention the short walk from the campsite before dinner.

Within five minutes walk we were at the animal farm.

 A very happy little girl.

Emily loved stroking the animals there. They were not shy at all. I think the animals at the farm are quite used to people.

Then we were guided to the playground by Emily.

 

 

She tried few times to hit the golf ball but...

 

In the end decided to just pick it up and put it in the goal.

 

I sat down and watched her play.

 

Later that day we made tea and just almost behind the woods where we were camping was the river so decided to sit and relax for a while.

Emily as always likes to throw stones in the water.

Olivia decided to cross the river across. Thankfully the level of water was quite low.

 

Sipping tea, knitting by the riverside all so good. Emily asked me to knit her a scarf. I am using the leftover wool from one of her very first cardigan I knitted for her. She grew so quickly out of it. I think next time I should knit one size big. Anyway, this scarf is a very easy knit. Just blocks of knit and pearl.

 

Next day the weather forecast was rain from about 11 o'clock but unfortunately it rained almost the whole day with some lighter drizzles in-between. We made sand castles and there were many surfers and body borders at the sea side.

We drove to the Gower beach from our campsite.

Martin and Olivia love body boarding and the rain didn't stop them in fact the waves were better they said.

Awwwww! Little Emily was so happy to see Daddy and big sister back.

 

Sunday almost whole day it rained. It rained the whole night and Monday morning was the same. So we enjoyed few cups of tea inside our caravan and the girls played some games.

By half past nine the rain stopped and we took the opportunity to walk up the hill.

Beautiful walk, I am glad we could still do it.

The view from the top was amazing. We do like it here in Wales.

 

 

We were camping somewhere down below, by the river where the arrow is pointing.