My husband has very kindly framed them for me, and now all the paintings for the show are ready for hanging. I did have a problem though, and one had to be re-done. Since Wallis paper is not available in the UK, I bought a large amount before leaving the US and shipped it over. Unfortunately, I seem to have bought a bad batch (as my pastel artist friends know, Wallis paper has been having some problems over the last few years). When I gave the paper a tap on the back to knock off loose pastel dust prior to framing, a great deal of pastel fell off! I don’t use fixative on my pastels as it dulls and alters the colours, but I decided I would try giving a light spray and then touch up the bad bits. It didn’t work well, as I didn’t like the surface after spraying it with fixative. As I hadn’t been particularly happy with that painting anyway, I decided to redo it on a different paper, and this is the result:

Monmouth Show Double Harness Scurry Driving

Free from the commitments of the show, I then painted a dog portrait – I am very fond of this dog, and wanted to capture his exuberance and alertness.

Dennis