Two exhibitions and a w.i.p

'The Flying Lesson' & 'Gannets' © Tracy Hall 2009

This week I had news that the two miniatures I sent to the Society of Wildlife Artists have been selected for their forthcoming exhibition. I'm very pleased, not least because I almost didn't send them. I hadn't read the prospectus properly (or soon enough) and when I finally did, realised that my usual miniature frames would not be robust enough to take the gallery's fixings. There was a good deal of hasty phoning, emailing and general hand-wringing, but my sincere thanks to Katie at Towngate Framing who did an absolutely beautiful job of reframing them to suit - just in time :) The show runs from Sept 23rd to Oct 4th at the Mall Galleries in central London.

One of the pieces I have been working on is a scene from an old crofters kitchen, which amongst other things incorporates bits and pieces from the various farm and vintage museums here in Orkney. It has been alot of fun to put together and will hopefully be finished this week. I tend to work on little sections at a time when doing one of these bigger (for me) paintings as I have a low boredom threshold and that keeps it interesting. I know, I'm all over the place.

Work in progress 20" x 28" © Tracy Hall 2009

I also received the wonderful news that I have been elected an associate member of the Royal Miniature Society (an associate can gain full membership after four years). For a miniature painter this is not easy to achieve and I'm very happy :)

RMS entries © Tracy Hall 2009

A bit of shameless exposure

There is an article about my miniatures in September's Artists & Illustrators magazine, together with a piece on the Royal Miniature Society (whose annual show will take place at the Mall Galleries in October). It is wonderful to see miniatures getting such great exposure and I'm very chuffed to be included. If I'm allowed to make one tiny, tinsy, little, insignificant comment (which I'm probably not) it would be that it's a pity they chose to show my paintings at about twice their actual size. They are miniatures after all. But that would just be ungrateful. And you can see them better.

My thanks to LC Littlejohn for making sense of my waffling and managing to put together a lovely cohesive article. If you had been listening in you would understand what she was up against. It is hard not to talk at great, and quite possibly boring, length about miniatures when someone gives you half a chance, but she had the courtesy to not fall asleep :)

Update - if you click on the pictures you should now be able to view the article as a pdf file, if I did it properly :)

Miniature in progress and a Great Yellow Bumblebee

Garden gate w.i.p - watercolour miniature 2" x 2"

Back after a summer break from the blog (hello again!) which did include a welcome holiday but was mainly taken up with work here in the studio. I have several paintings on the go just now, the largest of which is 28" x 20" and the smallest 2" square (shown above in progress - I am happily crawling across the surface, one dot at a time!) This one is based on the walled garden at Kirbister Farm Museum and is a proving very enjoyable to paint.

We were also lucky enough to see a great yellow bumblebee (Bombus distinguendus) in the garden this week. They are very scarce in the UK now due to loss of habitat, confined to just a few areas where more traditional farming methods are still practiced like Orkney and the Hebrides. Their rather wonderful Latin name comes from their habit of emitting a strong smell to protect their nest. They are quite a large bee, and have a distinctive black stripe between their wings. If Tim Dean (who I worked with on the Orkney Book of Birds) had not been standing next to me I wouldn't have known any of that though :) I find bees tricky to identify. I need more practice.

Great Yellow Bumblebee (and a fly!)