I had a busy day clearing up the mess yesterday. It was chaos here. So I popped down to the exhibition opening only briefly to join in the fun, and took a few photos and even bought a painting! Hooray! Fellow Blitzer, Sassy bought some art too. It’s so good to buy something. The artists will be happy, we are happy, Kingston Council is happy.

Nathaniel Jeffrey’s polymer clay work called ‘Connect Eight’ bought by Sassy

Here’s Sassy’s own lovely collage.

and here is her eight year old daughter Esther’s beautiful work. This one got my people’s choice vote.

This is the one I bought. It looks like Hieronymus Bosch painted it in 1956. Awesome! Not sure how the blue frame will look in our house, but I suspect it’s an integral part of the artwork. Hmmmm.

This year I noticed they had mixed everything up nicely. Kids art all mixed up with adult art. This is very good. One reason is that this is a community event exhibiting work from school children, hobby artists, complete non-artists having a bit of fun, through to semi or professional artists. It’s such a mix that it is fitting to mush them all together.

Another reason is that it avoids unnecessary mortification on behalf of those poor, innocent, damaged victims of mis-categorisation! Yes, it’s true… I’m still blushing!

Once upon a time, before all the age groups were mixed together, my piece was exhibited in the children’s art room. I love children’s art for its naive beauty, experimental quality and the quirkiness of the lines they make. Upon reflection, I should be proud to have had my work mistaken for that of a child. But I guess the real problem was that I had been too serious about Artz Blitz as a competition, was trying very hard and I wasn’t happy with my own picture. So it was inevitable that I would view the mistake with irony rather than pride. Ah well! I noticed this year that I enjoyed the experience much more and was pretty indifferent to the competition aspect. So I have learned something!

Here’s a picture by Phyllis Fernandez who had the same idea as me.

Phyllis’s baby has more attitude than mine I think :-)

Here are two embodiments of another idea that was on my brainstorm sheet. The elephants linked trunk to tail: A beautifully executed wire sculpture that won the Youth Prize. (Sorry I didn’t record the name of the artist. Will have to check it out later and update.) And a very cute pastel in a 50s looking white frame by Fiona Carter.

I like wire sculpture. I think that’s something I’d like to play with one day. It looks really fun.

Here’s another child’s artwork. Gabriel Martindale’s lovely train done in ink and watercolour. Gorgeous.

lovely bold stuff, with fine liner details. Great colour!

Here’s the piece by last year’s winner of the 2D section, Craig Fry. Very nice again. Wish I could show you a photo of last year’s one.

Here’s a sunset quilt that I liked a lot. (Once again, I’m sorry I didn’t photograph it clearly enough to read the name of the artist.)

And last of all, the 2D second prize winner, which I really liked a lot. But I must admit I would have liked it even better if it had not had the human hidden behind the smaller bird. It is by Michael Kemp and is a mixed media called ‘Wanting and Being’. Sorry about the poor quality of my photograph.

So that’s it for Art(z) Blitz until I get to go and collect my new painting and see what it looks like on my wall. Hooray!