Sex in the City at London's Saatchi Gallery

Gosha Ostretsov's 2008 'Sex in the City' installation at London's Saatchi Gallery, December 2012

Between completing my most recent commission and preparing for the up-coming Festive Season I've been to take a look at the current Saatchi Gallery 'Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union' exhibition. 
A stand-out piece was the above mixed media installation by Gosha Ostretsov, with its lipstick colours on monochrome and exciting comic-book graphics.
Hope your Christmas preparations are progressing better/faster/less flu-laden than mine!
Chin Chin!

Thanks again, Leicestershire Life!

Max and I have been rushed off our feet these past few weeks with all sorts of family events & crises. 
Happily, the lovely people at Leicestershire & Rutland Life have cheered me by once again featured my work, this time telling the story of the 'A Right Royal Street Party' Exhibition at Leicester's West End Gallery, in their most recent (October) issue.
To all concerned at L&RL, thank you for believing in me, and to everyone who continues to support my work, thank you again for attending the exhibition & for purchasing the magazine.
PS If you don't yet have a copy of the magazine & would like one, contact Leicestershire Life on Tel 0116 251 2512 or email info@leicestershirelife.co.uk

The Barcelona Album

Yesterday I came across the (real) album of photos Max and I put together using 'Blurb' following a visit to Spain a couple of years ago.
The Barcelona album contains some great architectural shots and is our take on one of the most creatively interesting and beautiful cities of the world. 
The album is also available to view online. To see the photos click on the pic above. To be taken to album purchase info on the 'Blurb' site, click here. 
Well, a girl has to ask :)
The album also includes some daft photos of Max and I enjoying ourselves on holiday and very possibly the worse for wear!
Don't say you haven't been warned!

Chaos averted once again!

My new commission is coming along nicely. As usual I overworked the early stages and had to be persuaded to cut back on the number of ideas originally included: there's a subtle difference between an artwork looking busy and being busy. Max says I always want to over-complicate my paintings and he's not wrong :)

Lizzy's 'A Right Royal Street Party' Leicester PR Campaign

Lizzy Hewitt Poster Campaign, a set by Lizzypix on Flickr.

Thanks from Buckingham Palace!

Leicester watercolourist, Peter Welton, who knows his way around the artistic world like no-one else I know, suggested during my recent exhibition of paintings that I should send a limited edition print of 'A Right Royal Street Party' to the subject of the portrait in her Diamond Jubilee year, Her Majesty the Queen.

To my surprise and delight a few weeks on and I've received the sweetest of notes from Buckingham Palace, calling my artwork 'splendid' - not, unexpectedly, from HRH herself, but from the Palace nevertheless. Here it is, and here am I, and well chuffed about it I am too :)

Liz Hewitt and her letter of thanks from Buckingham Palace

Taking photos where the sky meets the earth; Beacon Hill

After a frantic month of exhibiting my paintings I've been taking photos once again this week. 

With such a view who can blame druids for worshiping from this site?

It was a joy to sell posters and prints of 'A Right Royal Street Party' but running around for 4 weeks, fetching, delivering, doing PR, none of which I'd anticipated being a part of the exhibition process, ate up time & money as fast as it became available. 
Anyway, I had a call from the Leicester Mercury photo desk and off I went to snap druids on Beacon Hill. So, in a matter of days I've moved from the Royals at Buckingham Palace to the Charnwood Grove of Druids at the Bronze Age site near Loughborough; all grist to the artistic mill.
PS The ceremony was also being filmed for TV's The Hairy Bikers. Look out for it on BBC later in the year.

The druid story picture as it appeared in the 25.9 Leicester Mercury

Posters & Limited Edition prints remain available online!

The original of 'A Right Royal Street Party' for the moment remains at Leicester's West End Gallery. Despite many exhibition visitors the original unfortunately hasn't sold. Yet. But the good news is that more Limited Edition prints & posters were sold than expected AND I have a new commission to be getting on with, so I still have a smile on my face :)

All the borrowed, commissioned, business & family portraits have now been returned to their kind and generous owners. I'd like to thank each and every one of them for lending their pictures to my Leicester exhibition! Whilst I've thanked them all personally, this way I'm able to express my thanks publicly; as ever I'm deeply grateful to you all for all your support. Thank you.

Thanks too to all the friends, both old and new, who came along to the gallery to Meet the Artist. It was a real pleasure. Thank you for supporting my work and 'A Right Royal Street Party'. 

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

Limited Edition prints & posters of the artwork remain available online from the West End Gallery. (Click here.) If you're able to visit the gallery you can also purchase framed prints, expertly assembled by framer, Liam. See under.

As for the future, I'd very much like to show 'A Right Royal Street Party' at a gallery in London. How feasible this may be I don't yet know, but I'm making enquiries and will keep you posted. Meantime, fingers crossed!

Liam assembles...

...expertly...

...and the framed picture should look like this!

VIPs: artist Peter Welton & the sale of my first Limited Edition print!

I'm a big fan of Peter Welton, not just of the quality of his work but also of his work ethic and numerous achievements. He's what I'd like to be, a real professional artist! So it was great to have him drop into my West End Gallery exhibition and show his support. Thank you Peter!

Acclaimed Leicester artist, Peter Welton, with Lizzy Hewitt

Here's someone else who's really important, the lovely lady who purchased my first Limited Edition print of 'A Right Royal Street Party', Cherry Stevenson, with 7-year old granddaughter, Mae Stevenson.

Cherry Stevenson with granddaughter Mae & the first ever Limited Edition print sold!

Leslie & Maureen Gibbons, more 'Right Royal Street Party' fans

One month on & more visitor pics

It's already a month since my first ever exhibition, at Leicester's West End Gallery, came to an end. 

The business of being in exhibition was both exhilarating and exhausting; if I'd realised it beforehand, I'm not sure I'd have been so keen to go ahead.

No matter, one month on and fully recovered, I'm trying to repeat the exercise with an exhibition in London!

But I'm ahead of myself; in the last few days of the Leicester expo more friends and visitors popped in. So here, belatedly, are a few more pics:

Youbing Zhao enjoys the humour of Lizzy Hewitt's 'A Right Royal Street Party'

The original painting receives attention from Pedro Duarte 

 Leicester-based fine artist, Louise Ellerington, with 'A Right Royal Street Party'

Artist Lizzy Hewitt & Leicester hairdresser, Indy, 
with his business portrait, included in Lizzy's exhibition.

The end of the beginning & the start of something new

A  lot of lovely people have visited my first exhibition at Leicester's West End Gallery over the past 4 weeks. THANKS to everyone who's dropped in, especially to those who bought posters and prints of 'A Right Royal Street Party'!

Just coming along to my Meet the Artist sessions, to enthuse, encourage, look and laugh was truly inspiring!

THANK YOU ALL!! It was great meeting you!

On Saturday 19.8. the exhibition officially ends, so if you haven't already done so you've just a few days left to visit! What the end of the expo means for me, aside from new commissions, I don't yet know. With the extra confidence you've given me these past weeks, I do know it's going to be exciting!

Sadly, though not without warning, my agent's ill-health is causing her to withdraw from helping me. We were planning much more together and we're both disappointed. She reminds me always that those of us with good health shouldn't take it for granted.

But she would be first to insist that I continue my artwork and I'll be doing just that, knowing she's urging me on, still at the end of the phone. It's the end of the beginning and maybe also the start of something new, unknown and hopefully challenging!

In the meantime here are a few pictures of yet more wonderful exhibition visitors from the past week. Onwards and upwards.

Alison Smith & her daughters in front of their commissioned family portrait (L)

From Leicester, Jo Griffiths & her family

A Right Royal Street Party attracts yet more attention :)

There! There! There!

Meet the Artist, 3 August

Lizzy with entertainer Becca O'Hara

Shyam & Shoba Brahmbhatt of Stoneygate

Juliet Whitfield & Nell aged 7, of Houghton-on-the-Hill

Curtis Billingham & Joanna Piotrowska of Scraptoft

BBC Radio Leicester presenters Tony Wadsworth & Julie Mayer

Lizzy with Andy Ward

Becca O'Hara in performance

Not only paintings attracted attention

Tony & Julie receive a signed print of The UpBeatles from Lizzy Hewitt

Tony & Becca have fun

Amy Shore & Lizzy