My Chelsea experience at Parallax Art Fair!

Parallax Art Fair at Chelsea Town Hall

Phew! The Parallax Art Fair last weekend was amazing! And exhausting! It poured on Friday evening, which made transporting watercolours treacherous, especially since parking was almost impossible - even the local NCP was packed.

Lizzy,still putting up paintings
at the private view!

Squeezing into a tiny Pay & Display spot around the corner, Max and I had only an hour to get everything into Chelsea Town Hall and to put up all the paintings in my designated exhibition area.

Two hours later we were still at it! I'd prepared a scaled drawing of the space but the paintings seemed to hang higher than expected. I wasn't the only artist who discovered this. With no time to re-hang, I believed my pictures couldn't be viewed at their best :(

Lizzy with cousin Graham Barker & art agent, Celia Purcell

With no time to make adjustments, Max and I dashed for the car. Thankfully the place we were staying was nearby. With less than an hour to get ready for the evening's private view I wondered if I could possibly make it in time. Somehow I did it, fishnets, high heels and all, and we cabbed it back to Chelsea Town Hall arriving just a few minutes late.

As my hair frizzed in the heat and humidity of the exhibition space, something I'd have to get used to over the next two days (take a portable fan if you're attending Chelsea Town Hall, people!), I wondered anew if exhibiting at Parallax was such a sensible idea. 

Sandra Blaz, interested in a future commission

Then the lovely London art agent Celia Purcell came walking towards me, wide smile on her face, and I relaxed. I'm always pleased to see her because she's particularly enthusiastic about my 'quirky style'. She loved my exhibited drawing of ‘Notre Dame’ and wants me to paint more for inclusion in her own exhibition nearer Christmas! Celia, I will, I will!

Saturday - before the rush!

Over the two days of the Art Fair many lovely guests from around the world visited my stand and YES! On Saturday I sold my painting, ‘Girl on a Motorcycle’. That made the event for me! The cute watercolour references the 1960s, Vespa scooters and Marianne Faithfull in 'Girl on a Motorcycle' and has long been one of my personal favourites.

Lizzy with Bruce Withington in his Chelsea garden, with 'Girl on a Motorcycle' - SOLD!

Bruce, who purchased the piece, had bought his son Ollie along to the Art Fair. It was Ollie who spotted the painting and wanted it for his bedroom wall. Ollie also happens to be the name of a character in ‘Made In Chelsea’ and I told Bruce how I adored the programme and would love to have my own Chelsea experience. Just like that Bruce invited Max & I to his Chelsea home for Pimm's & strawberries! What a great guy!

Loving my Chelsea experience and totally star-struck (Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys' fame lives a few doors down the road) Bruce took us on to the Phoenix Geronimo Inn, which also features in ‘Made in Chelsea’, where he treated us to cocktails. This fabulous chap gave me my own wonderful Chelsea experience, so thank you Bruce, you're an art lover, thoroughly lovely man and a star!

Parallax Art Fair underway and already there are lots of visitors

Plenty to see & much to talk about!

Artist Bozena Czyz with her work

A closer look

So much to take in across Chelsea Town Hall

Heading home

Silent contemplation. Will she, should she?

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, 20 July

Howard & Margaret Barker & limited edition prints

Couldn't have been happier with my first Meet the Artist session at West End Gallery on Friday. Some 30-odd people came along, we made a number of sales and exhibition feedback was entirely, brilliantly, positive!
Thank you EVERYONE for coming!
(And there's still one painting to arrive!)

Christine Denoon

With so many of my artworks now located in the same place, friends & family have had the opportunity to see what I've achieved over recent years. Their wonderfully encouraging comments have provided perhaps the biggest thrill of all :)

Now all I have to do is to sell my original 'A Right Royal Street Party' water colour, limited edition prints & posters! If you'd like to know more click through to my 'Right Royal' sales page here.

Marlene Scott finds humour in A Right Royal Street Party

A cloud on the horizon is the worsening illness of my agent, who couldn't make the Meet the Artist event and is having to withdraw from other activities. 
It was my agent who came up with the idea for 'A Right Royal Street Party' and provided ideas for the exhibition ad poster and so much more besides.
I owe her and I hope she'll be around much longer!

Lizzy with Glen & Jacqui Tillyard

Mo Brown considers A Right Royal Street Party poster

Lizzy & Radio Daze

Lizzy & Jacqui Tillyard

Lizzy holds her end up with John Denoon

Lizzy's nibbles

No-one cares like mum! Lizzy & Christine Denoon

LH & Howard & Margaret Barker

Picture notes attract keen interest

Lizzy with West End Gallery's Gillian Geary

Mark Hewitt admires Radio Daze

Mo Brown & The Smith Family portrait

Suzanne Barnacle & her mum

Lizzy Hewitt, artist

Exhibition starts 19 July, West End Gallery, Leicester

Appreciative audience, L-R, Les Rue, Bob & Pat Tichener and Mike King, from Hinckley

My agent and I visited Leicester's West End Gallery yesterday, to settle outstanding details in advance of my first ever exhibition which begins there on 19 July.
'A Right Royal Street Party' will be the centre of the exhibition, which also features a half dozen or so commissioned family & business portraits from the past couple of years.
It's the first time I've had more than a few of my artworks together in one place and it's a strange, having released them to the world, to have them together again. 
Odd, too, to see how my style has changed over a comparatively short time.
The Gallery was getting busy by the time we left, and to my surprise and pleasure a good deal of attention is already being paid to 'A Right Royal Street Party'.
Les Rue, Bob & Pat Tichener and Mike King from Hinckley were most enthusiastic & complementary about the painting.
I'll be mailing them exhibition invitations to my forthcoming Meet the Artist sessions, and they can bring their American visitors to share the fun! You can come too!
Details available tomorrow :)

'A Right Royal Street Party' - framed & displayed!

'A Right Royal Street Party' - framed & displayed

Here's a quick peek at the interior of Leicester's West End Gallery; spacious, light, airy and very smart. I'm incredibly lucky to be holding my exhibition here.

As you can see, my painting of the Royal Family's own Jubilee bash, 'A Right Royal Street Party' is at last framed and displayed. Recent family & business portraits arrive next week.
The quality prints taken from the painting are excellent; the paper & colour reproduction are great and I'm delighted with them. The same can't yet be said of the posters but we'll keep going until they too are true copies of the original.
It looks like my exhibition will begin mid-July as it's going to take that long to get the products ready to buy online. I'd like a bigger variety of products, maybe table mats or decorative tins, but they'll have to wait until sales justify consideration, my agent says!
I suppose it's true, setting up the exhibition is already costing quite a bit.

My first exhibition, at West End Gallery, Leicester!

Lizzy Hewitt's first exhibition, to be held at West End Gallery, Leicester

Such excitement in the House of Hewitt! 
Leicester's marvellous West End Gallery has agreed to hold an exhibition of my newest work, 'A Right Royal Street Party', together with earlier portraits!
It'll be my first ever exhibition!
Details have still to be finalised but we're looking initially at a two week period in July to be followed by a further two weeks if all goes well. Beyond that, who knows?!
Having said for years that I should widen my product range to allow more people to purchase and enjoy my artworks, my agent is in seventh heaven at the prospect of finally selling posters and prints of my paintings. 
I'm pretty pleased about it too!

Teaser 2: Dogs just wanna have fun

Dogs just wanna have fun!

Except for a few changes the new painting is finished!

My agent says if I want to be a new Giles (had to look up that reference!) the characters must be recognisable, and, well, a few of them aren't, quite, yet.

Giles was a master and I want to get the thing right, so here's another little teaser for you meantime :)

Do you know what it is yet?

Any umbrellas?

Keep Calm & Carry On!

My agent, who's always going on at me to do more and work harder, probably does more than me even though she's disabled!

Max and I drove her to see her consultant this week and whenever we do something for her she always gives us something to say thanks.

Not that she needs to. 

So with a massive stroke of luck, the week my old umbrella gave up the ghost I was presented with this zingy new one!

Not only is it Jubilee themed, with the umbrella right down over my head I can see through the clear plastic panels AND keep my hair dry.

So both stylish and practical!
Max approves too, hence the pic.

All that Jazz - with Clare Teal in Concert

Clare Teal in concert, Leicester 14.4.

My agent's a big jazz fan. Her health not being up to attending award-winning singer Clare Teal's Leicester concert last night, Max & I were asked if we'd like to go along instead.
We were glad we did; although we know little of her work, Clare did justice to every song. She's very funny and her band was wonderful! I particularly enjoyed her version of Snow Patrol's 'Chasing Cars'.
Don't think I'll ever be a jazz fan (with the possible exception of Billie Holiday) but hearing music being played & sung as well as this is something special.

Christmas optimism

My agent has a thing about equine sculpture. Saw this marvel in a Leicester centre shop window and fleetingly thought I might buy it for her for Christmas. Then saw the price tag.