Dizzojay's Dean Dreams

 So finally, after a hiaitus of a couple of years, dapplegrey art got back on the road this weekend.

I set the stall up at Chale Show, Isle of Wight, a stalwart of my dapplegrey journey.  It was my fourteenth year at the show and it felt so damn good to be back!

 It's difficult to describe what went on this weekend.

Challenge #5


In your own space, talk about an idea you wish you had the time / talent / energy to do. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Back in 2007, I decided to start selling my artwork. I’m a pastel artist, and my pictures, the non-fandom stuff anyway,  are all animal based, with a bit of fantasy and a bit of whimsy thrown in.  Something to make them – hopefully – stand out from the crowd! I trade under the name of dapplegrey art.

I trade through my website www.dapplegreyart.co.uk , and on my stall at craft fayres, and other similar events.

Over the fourteen years that dapplegrey art has been trading, I’ve sold around forty original pictures and completed around sixty commissions.

I’ve always thought it would be nice to go full time and do art for a living. However, I don’t charge anywhere near enough to make that happen, also, I’d need to sell about five times as many pictures as I already do to give up my day job and enable that to happen.

I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a fandom arm to dapplegrey art as I’ve done a lot of pastel fanart which I don’t sell; I get it autographed at conventions.

Basically, I’ve realised I’m an artist, but not a businesswoman. I just want to draw all day. I draw for love, and money. But I’m crap at making money.

So that means there’s just love left. And there’s nothing wrong with that, right?

This weekend I travelled over to the Isle of Wight to set up and work my frst dapplegrey art show for two years.  It was so lovely to be giving my art an airing, to be spending a day talking art to the public and my fellow stallholders who I hadn't seen for so long - it was so ... normal!

It turned out to be a fairly successful weekend.  Not record-breaking, but lots of interest, three very promising commission enquiries, an interesting business proposition and about £300 worth of sales on the day.

As always, my dad came with me to help me set up and man the stall.  He's the art influence in my life, and dapplegrey art is his baby as much as mine.  It was great to give him a reason to come out, get a bit of sun on his face and socialise with a few people.  The show was held on Saturday and Sunday but we headed to the venue to set up on the Friday so there was no pressure on Saturday morning.  We do this every year and finish up with a cup of tea and a cake in a local cafe; it's just a lovely dad/daughter bonding time.  Having said that, the set-up took up twice as long as normal as we were so out of the routine and the rhythm!

In the end I was mostly happy with how the stall looked (except the red roof on the marquee which wasn't great for artistic lighting!) 



It was just such a lovely cathartic weekend, after the last crappy year where everything was cancelled an postponed multiple times.  It was also a little bit bittersweet because I know how much my dad loves these events but I seriously wonder if this would be the last year he will be able to come.  I know how much he enjoys these shows, but he's so unsteady on his legs now, and in so much pain with them, he could hardly walk by the afternoon on Sunday.  When we dismantled the stall, he did what he could, but he had to sit down and watch me load the car, which would have been really difficult for him because he's quite old-fashioned in his outlook, and seeing me doing manual labour and heavy lifting and not being able to help would have hurt him badly.

So we may have some difficult conversations ahead of us.   We shall have to see for next year. :(

But for now, I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I had this opportunity, and so did my dad.

dapplegrey art is back in business!

There really hasn't been much going on on the dapplegrey art front this year, so it was lovely to be approached by a colleague for a portrait of his best girl, Lexi. 

She's a beautiful baby and she was a pleasure to draw.  Lexi is a Hungarian Visla and she's a daddy's girl through and through!

I've been busy this last couple of weeks working on my final commission of 2020, Jack, the Welsh pony.

Now, one of the questions I often get asked at exhibitions and shows is 'do I ever get a portrait wrong'?  And the answer is 'hell, yeah!'



( Read more... )

Commission #2 is underway!

As with everything else, 2020 has been a complete washout in terms of art.

Every show or exhibition I had booked for this year was cancelled, and with people being furloughed on reduced pay, or worried for their jobs, or going out of business, no-one was interested in buying art.  As disappointing as that is, I totally understand and respect it.

However, in real terms that means that as at the end of August, dapplegrey art had done absolutely nothing this year; not a single penny in the coffers :(

But then, as is often the case, after eight months of kicking my heels, I got two commissions within a week of each other!

So I've been working on the first, larger one which is of two dogs and a horse.  It's just really nice to have something to work on at last: a target to aim for.

I've been doing work in progress shots for the lady who asked for the picture as she's fascinated by the process, and because it represents a positive change in dapplegrey art's fortunes, I thought I'd share my progress so far!




( Pictures )

Happy Good Friday Peeps!

Well, it's been a beautiful day, and in line with our lockdown, we've spent the entirety of it sitting in the garden.  We ventured to the back gate and had a socially-distanced chat with our neighbours, Becky and Mark, (from either side of the road!) but we ended up eating our dinner and enjoying a bottle of wine in the garden and it was lovely.  I was also able to sit down and actually do some art at last.

I must admit, that over the last few weeks, my creativity has been seriously lacking.  I have had a big inspiration slowdown, which I think is a combination of many things.  The general situation, worry about my parents, worry about Mr D stil working with the public, and uncertainty surrounding various arrangements that I have in place eg: Darklight con in Paris and Jus in Bello.  Not to mention that in the four weeks since I've been working from home, I've fallen into a very bad habit of basically working around 11-12 hours a day - don't ever let anyone tell you that working from home is a doss!

So yes, my muse has gone AWOL recently.  However, the prospect of four lazy days and some decent sunshine seems to have brought her out of hiding, and today I spent a nice few hours in the garden working on a picture with, I hope, a bit of humour in it.

It came from a conversation Mr D and I had about the days when we used to go horse riding together, and how Mr D seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on the floor...

This picture's called 'What are you doing down there?'