Gilly Huber | Artist

At last, all the exhibitions that I’ve been talking about entering are underway and I can stop stressing about having enough paintings for them all. And a pastel painting even sold at Pastel Society Exhibition a couple of weeks ago, so that was a good start.

But I did decide that I had to allow one exhibition to slide by without entering. It was all getting just too much and it was going to be yet another one right in the middle of October when I’m having the joint exhibition at Celtic Swan Gallery. One can only stretch oneself so much! Most of the exhibitions I enter are for charitable causes, or part of the art groups to which I belong, or to help with fund-raising for local schools. That way I don’t object about the commission that’s taken, I feel it’s going to good causes.

I have had an enormous amount of fun lately beginning the new oil painting techniques of Arleta Pech. I took a photograph of one of the beautiful roses my husband grows in our garden and followed her instructions and the result was stunning! I was so pleased as the painting really did seem to glow and, for me, the techniques were so easy and comfortable, I was really disappointed when the small canvas was completed. I emailed an image to Arleta and she very kindly replied with positive comments and congratulations which was very pleasing and encouraging. She is a lovely lady and so helpful.

When my daughter has a little more time I’m hoping she can create a Links page for me on this website and then I can direct everyone to other artists whom I also admire.

After the success of the first painting I’m now being really ambitious and going a little larger and a lot more complicated - a composition of several roses tumbling down the canvas and the incorporation of a small bird. I’m beginning to experiment with whether this technique is going to suit my favourite subjects of animals and birds. I don’t see why not, once I get used to glazing the colours to make the shades I need as opposed to trying to mix them. It is slow, there is a lot of overnight drying time, but I love the depth and richness that can be achieved and it suits my nature. I don’t rush at anything and I want my work to be as perfect as I can make it.

I have another DVD of Arleta’s where she begins to expand on the types of subject matter to be painted and also the use of some opaque paint, but I want to nail the initial glazing techniques first before moving on to more advanced work.

In the meantime, I’m not abandoning my love of pastels. I’m also working on a young kookaburra but mostly doing that at our Monday morning art group. The oil painting is not a medium that I can work in outside the Studio, I feel, as at art group there are too many interruptions.

So, I’ve been a pretty dull girl of late with very little to report. Not dull to myself, ‘though. The more I paint the happier I become, the happier I am the more I want to paint. What a wonderful circle!