OPEN 25 Private View

OPEN 25 art exhibition & competition

Valentine's night and it's the Private View for OPEN 25 2014! My drawing of Notre Dame is included & stupidly I'm quite excited! Primarily though I'm here tonight to take photographs of the event for this blog, not so easy when everyone is slurping wine and there's a real danger of knocking glasses over & damaging artworks.

Everyone from Leicester's world of arts & culture appears to have turned out, including my photo chums from the Leicester Mercury & Leicester City Council. We chat & slurp.

My mum arrives - she's so proud! (I'm in tears at this point - too much slurping, methinks!) To have a drawing chosen for a major exhibition in my hometown is a significant achievement & I'm genuinely pleased for myself & my mum who's no mean artist herself.

I reflect that my Royal painting (A Right Royal Street Party!) wasn't selected; it would have looked fabulous in this huge museum space with all ages to enjoy it. But I've bored you before about how one never knows what a judging panel is looking for. 

Sacre Blue Baleine by Oliver Marc Thomas Leger, winner of the Attenborough Prize 2014

In the end the Attenborough Prize 2014 was awarded to Oliver Marc Thomas Leger for a drawing of a habitat-providing whale. Very detailed, it must have taken ages.

The exhibition runs at New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester, until 27 April. There's some amazing work here. Pop along!

The Private View crowd remained for the 

announcement of prize winners

Leicester's New Walk Art Gallery was packed for the Private View

Artist Louise Ellerington (front, right) at the Private View

Lizzy beside her drawing of Notre Dame showing the space in Leicester's New Walk Art Gallery

Admiring Notre Dame. With permission

Lizzy's mum is so proud!

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