Glasgow Art Show 2012

When I went to see Frances at Art Exposure at the weekend, she told me that my paintings were all wrapped up and ready to go to the Glasgow Art Show - most exciting! Unfortunately she wasn't sure if she would have space for them to hang or not (especially as she had just got a delivery of pretty big still-wet Paul Kennedy paintings, which looked pretty amazing. She also has a few Howson's to show.
It was a couple of years ago that I visited the old Glasgow Art Fair, which used to be held in George Square, and promised myself that one day I would be one of the artists showing. Now it's happening and hopefully this new show will be as interesting as the old fair. It is happening in the Grand Ballroom at the Thistle Hotel, corner of Renfrew and Sauchiehall Streets, and there are about 50 galleries showing - Art Exposure is opposite the bar, which is nice and handy. Hopefully some of you will make it along and if so, please tell me what you thought.

28 Drawings Later - The Party

And to end it all, there was a party!
This drawing is from before people arrived, after all the helper monkeys had plastered the walls with reproductions of everyone's work - there was so much great work that I didn't remember seeing. Upstairs we had space to hang the originals - this was fab as we got to meet each other in real life - it is always great to actually talk to people you've only met online and to see there work in reality - it is always so much better!
Now it's all over it seems an appropriate time to write about my favourites of the year - like Fiona Wilson and her absolutely amazing sketchbook from Argentina (mega inspiring) or Donna Nicholson-Arnott's delicate line drawings, or Neil McChrystal and of course Victoria Evans our very hard working organiser who stunned us all with her great portraits this year (and her even more stunning sketchbooks!) - she is now accepting commisions for drawings at an unbelievably low price - a bargain not to be missed if you are in the Glasgow area. Joe Hendry stunned everyone with his graphite drawingsthis year, and even Frank To managed a couple of drawings. Moira Buchanan showed lots of lovely studies (especially liked the apples) as well as appearing in one of my drawings. Penny didn't do any drawings that she was willing to share but was the subject of at least 2 artists work as well as mine.
Above are all folks I know, so the following is a list of those that stood out - Graeme McNee's series of lost friends was charming - I hope he met up with a least one of these people. June Russell's work was as stunning this year as last and it was a real pleasure to meet her. She was probably the furthest travelled artist and I hoped she enjoyed her stay in Glasgow. Another returner from last year was the Cameron family - just brilliant. And Holgar's number series was tremendous - and very original. Also enjoyed Eileen Shona's work and Drew Johnson's bananas. Lin Chau was another I was pleased to meet, as I was the very imaginative John Grieve .
Oooof I'm running out of energy and I know I'll have missed several brilliant people off the list - this year it was so big it was hard to keep track of everyone. Looking back there are so many drawings it is next to impossible to look at them all. Still, I will try and come back here and post o few more later.