Author: Janet Brady

We all love our pets, from the traditional Cat and Dog to the exotic Iguana!
The challenge is to capture your pet in the medium of your choice, painted with love and care, capturing their personality.

Competition – 3. Win a £50.00 voucher to spend at Brambles Art Retreat. Inspired by your pet, a dog ,cat, hamster, horse, snake, spider…. we don’t mind what. Any Style any media. Entries to reach us by 6pm on Monday 20th July. Winner will be announced on Tuesday 21st July.
Tell us a little about your painting, Who it is? What media You used and the size.
Terms and conditions

This theme proved to be too challenging, perhaps painters needed more time!

“The Gate” – the winner receives a £50.00 voucher to spend at Brambles Art Retreat, on a course or a piece of work. Thank you to all who participated this week, we had a broad selection of styles to choose from, the moody black and white, or the light through glowing through the gate, to bright bold colours and simple shapes.

The composition of this painting is really strong. The gate precariously perched on the cliff edge, the post leaning into the picture, with the battered old gate leaning the other way. The sea almost half way up the page but slightly higher, a lovely colour, a perfect backdrop framing the gate. The Snowdonia mountain range in the distance giving a good focal point beyond the gate. The roughy palette knife sky adds interest and movement in keeping with the style of the painting as a whole. Well done Tom!

I’ve been filling sketchbooks for many years now. Using them for preparation for painting ideas and as teaching tools showing the drawing and painting process. The selection below are from a very special sketch book, my “Stay at Home” sketchbook that I started using lockdown.
it documents all the changes from March 2020 to now., some things in our garden and around the house. But mostly the lane nearby where I walk our dog Jupiter. A diary of the season changing, the flowers vegetation, growth a blossoming of the hedgerows.

It’s been a real eye opener, I’ve lived here twenty years snd not really seen that lane and how beautiful it really is. I know every inch of those hedges and can spot a new flower, tree or plant as it grows or appears.

The big difference between these sketchbooks and my usual ones is in these I write my emotions, my anxieties, fears and worries during the covid19 pandemic. It’s cathartic, it’s good for me it helps. I have encouraged others
to do the same.

Mini Competition – 2

Win a £50.00 voucher to spend at Brambles Art Retreat.

The theme a gate, old, new, urban, countryside, real or imaginary.

Inspired by the fascination of gates, the gate often leads the viewer into the painting, tempting them to look beyond the gate. Farm gates that are often surrounded by wild flowers, and lovely views beyond.
Or can be an urban gate, even a battered old wooden gate, hanging off it’s hinges. The challenge is to paint your version of a gate in any style any media. 
Entries to reach us by 6pm on Sunday 6th July, winner announced on Monday 7th July. A selection of the entries will be displayed on our website. 
Send your entries to : janet@bramblesartretreat.com

Please supply a clear jpeg photo by email, tell us what size it is, what media you used and a few words about how you did it. Don’t forget to add your full name. We look forward to seeing all the entries. Good Luck!

Terms and conditions *

Foxglove Challenge – mini competition 1

A big thank you to the participants of our first Mini -Competition. The entries provided us with range of very beautiful styles to choose from starting with the botanically realistic, others moody, and ethereal and an intensely coloured collage.

The winner receives a £50.00 voucher to spend at Brambles Art Retreat. The voucher is valid for 12 months. It can be used to purchase a piece of artwork or put towards the cost of a course.

We chose Penny’s Painting because of its delicate ethereal style. Not too realistic, not too abstract, such lovely flower patterns and delicate bud shapes. Starting off realistic in the sky then merging into a sea of flower heads. The focal point on the lower left of centre, with the intensity of colour and pattern, not repetitive, but flowing. We love the colour of the flowers and the the use of layering to add strength and intensity.
Congratulations Penny!

The challenge to create thirty pieces of work in thirty consecutive days.
Find out more www.thirty.works

It’s been a challenge, the muse has been with me most of the time. On the first say I wandered down our back lane, deep in the Devon countryside wondered where to start. I wanted it to be fresh and with purpose I didn’t expect to dig so deep, to find my oldest memories, my demons my existential musings…… but that’s what’s come out.

I followed my heart, I didn’t worry about painting style, the “Altered Glass” effect gave me such freedom. The simplistic style of painting I find pleasing and an easy way to develop a painting quickly.

I’m looking forward to the next 9 paintings. Watch this space!