Every year during the first week in August Sidmouth hosts an International Folk Festival filling the seaside town with musicians and dancers from all over the world. 
As a local artist with my gallery in Sidmouth I thought I would started this year’s set of naive paintings in readiness for the festival. Here is my first for the season – 
I just love these multi-colour dancers bringing such fun to town with their glorious get-ups and painted faces.
I am enjoying taking my folk style forward here in Sidmouth – home of the International Folk Festival!
It is fun to paint in this style – released from the focus of representation and realism. 
I find it enables me to engage in the surrounding Devon landscape in a fresh and exciting manner. I am using small cotton canvas boards and acrylic paints to deliver colorful images at accessible prices.
Hi all. Like me have you been thinking about how to present your hard work at its best. I have been trying out free software for showing paintings in different rooms to give potential customers an idea of how the work may look in situ. Amazingly simple to achieve
and adds a perspective otherwise very expensive to produce (these were done through ohmyprints.com) I wondered if anyone else had useful experiences to share using such techniques to boost interest?
Always looking at my surrounding countryside anew. Here is my latest attempt at bringing my local village alive in a vibrant and emotional way.
I’ve painted this on canvas board in acrylic paints from memory. I do enjoy creating work from a mixture of realism and imagination to develop a different look and feel to the work.
An apple a day keeps the artist at play! Latest work to be hung in my gallery here in Sidmouth. Enjoyed the exercise of controlling hue and shade. Always good to keep the eye in!
16th May
The ‘Baroness with a Brush’ Tamara de Lempicka was born on the 16th May 1898. In Paris during the Roaring Twenties she became part of the city’s bohemian life. 
Although clearly influenced by Cubism she became a leading exponent of the Art Deco style and real favourite of the Hollywood set.
This blog is part of a year long project to discuss an artist born on each day of the year.
If you want to know which Artist was born on your Birthday? A month by month, day by day calendar of famous artists born each day of the year is just HERE!
15th May
The Russian Artist Viktor Vasnetsov was born on May 15th 1848. He specialized in mythological and historical subjects. He is considered the co-founder of Russian folklorist and romantic modernist painting and a key figure in the Russian revivalist movement.
This blog is part of a year long project to discuss an artist born on each day of the year.
If you want to know which Artist was born on your Birthday? A month by month, day by day calendar of famous artists born each day of the year is just HERE!
14th May
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker born on this day in 1727 and founder member of the Royal Academy. 
He surpassed his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds to become the dominant British portraitist of the second half of the 18th century. His a light palette and easy strokes became the method from then on. 
He preferred landscapes to portraits, and is credited (with Richard Wilson) as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school.
This blog is part of a year long project to discuss an artist born on each day of the year.
If you want to know which Artist was born on your Birthday? A month by month, day by day calendar of famous artists born each day of the year is just HERE!
13th May
The French Artist Georges Braque was born on the 13th May 1882. He worked in many media and styles including but is often best remembered for the development of Cubism alongside Picasso around 1911. 
Prior to painting in the Cubist style he worked in the ‘Fauvist’ manner of Derain and Matisse and in 1907 he successfully exhibited works of in the Salon des Indépendants.
It was in 1907 that his style became influenced by Paul Cezanne, who had died the year before, after visiting his major retrospective at the Salon d’Automne. It was this show that greatly affected Braque, and others, and ultimately resulted in the advent of Cubism.
This blog is part of a year long project to discuss an artist born on each day of the year.
If you want to know which Artist was born on your Birthday? A month by month, day by day calendar of famous artists born each day of the year is just HERE!
12th May
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator, was born on this day in 1828. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 along with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. These young men were to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement, most notably William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. 
His work also influenced the European Symbolists and was a major precursor of the Aesthetic movement. Rossetti’s personal life was closely linked to his work, especially his relationships with his models and muses Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth and Jane Morris.
This blog is part of a year long project to discuss an artist born on each day of the year.
If you want to know which Artist was born on your Birthday? A month by month, day by day calendar of famous artists born each day of the year is just HERE!