A Dominican Republic naive giant

Stopped in my tracks I was on Friday when I popped to the framers to get a couple of pictures mounted (yeah, I know, Miss Lazy me). Dominating the whole shop was this wondrous thing, a truly tropical Noah's Ark which was fair sizzling off the canvas.

It had apparently been purchased in the Dominican Republic by some lucky person in Puerto. It stands about five feet high and nine wide and I fell in love with it so I quickly took some pictures as best I could to share it with you.
Enjoy (as they say).

Two awkward nuns and two bouncing dogs

= two recent bits and bobs.

The nun painting, the sketchbook idea of which I posted earlier, is finished.

 

They are two of a group who all looked really seriously out of place among the desporting semi-naked bodies on the beach at the Witterings on a bank holiday a few summers ago.

The bouncing dogs emerged from something rather more problematic.

It's a fragment of a painting I sat up late into the night doing. My only excuse for this aberration is that I must have been hallucinating. The next day, thinking better of the rubbishy result I chopped it up in disgust and cut out the only bit I was even vaguely happy with. That'll teach me. Too much detail. So I've stripped what was a complicated image of the local port back to a couple of bouncing dogs on the sea wall. And will put it behind my ear for reference for a future minimalist painting.

A lovely surprise ...

... in my mailbox this morning.

This is the colourific invitation to this year's ABNA (Association of British Naive Artists) show which is taking place in November (6-19) in St Ives, Cornwall, a county which must rank as the spiritual home of the genre. And I was lucky enough to have my sheepish Castleton painting included on it (top left corner).

Thankfully I have received word that that big naive parcel of mine arrived in a record time of five days. I guarantee it will take about 5 days to hack through the sticky tape and bubble wrap to get to the paintings inside.
Sorry Judy!

My big fat naive parcel

This morning I finally sent off three kilos-worth of paintings to Cornwall for the British Naive Artists' show in St Ives next month. All I can say is I feel very sorry for the person at the other end who has to unwrap it. Thoughts of childhood parties and pass the parcel came into my head. Never in the field of human endeavour has so much sticky tape been used for so few paintings ...

Unfortunately I was frazzled, engulfed in a mountain of bubble wrap, cellophane and paper and working against the clock and failed to recognise the importance of marking the event with a photograph so that all might laugh at my cack-handed packing skills. No wonder I only lasted a day on the Selfridges gift wrap counter in my student days.

Still, look at my postal track record: gaping envelopes, ripped parcels, lost packages ... to say nothing of one that eventually arrived after a sojourn in the Cayman Islands. So no, I don't trust the postal service. Here or there. I simply place my faith in the great God sticky tape.

So failing a pic of the parcel I am putting up photos of a couple of the paintings inside it. And hope they are winging their way to the west country even as I type. Safely and soundly.