paint these gardens

Last weekend I entered a painting competition with my good buddy Helen. This was the first painting competition I'd ever entered - possibly an outdoor competition in the middle of Winter was not the best idea, but still. We had fun.

Paint These Gardens was run by the Friends of the St Kilda Botanic Gardens - it's one of my favourite places to go in Melbourne, even though it's so close to the beach there aren't usually too many people there, and it's so close to lovely cafes & shops whilst still being rather secluded.

The brief - spend your time in the gardens, painting. Painting time ran over three days, I got a bit (a lot) worried as we didn't go on the first day, so by the time we turned up on Sunday there were some amazing paintings in progress. I decided to stick with my style, and painted this little guy - the trees are rather vaguely reminiscent of some in the Gardens.

All the paintings were hung together on Monday so voting could occur for the People's Choice award - I had a very angst ridden moment when I was standing near my little painting and heard one man proclaim to another, 'that's not art, that's design.' Ouch. Straight through the heart. No, not really. You can see the winners here.

I've just got a couple of final little things to do to my little fox, then it will be available for sale in my Etsy shop.

6 comments:

lyptis said...

Nice picture!

'that's not art, that's design.' - how funny!:)
It must have been freezing!!

Penny said...

It was freezing! No wonder I got so sick after it! And raining too, thankfully we could take refuge in a little marquee they set up. It was still fun though.

Vickie said...

that's lovely Penny :)

helena said...

ohhhh gorgeous penny, i love this piece! I like all your wood series actually!

Ah don't worry about that man, art is subjective anyway...i'm sure he's not an artist himself. Or if he is, he's just a dumb, arrogant one.

looking forward to seeing more paintings from you!

chinamommy said...

thank you for visiting MY blog :) i just found yours & love your work- i'm an etsy girl too (chinamommy). i've become a "follower" of your blog too!!
~misschell

Anonymous said...

what a butthead! it's so art, it's lovely.


stupid butthead