Last week I embarked upon a rather epic adventure*.
*by British standards that is - I appreciate that in the US these distances are considered a little less insane!
I had to go for a drive to pick up some art materials I had bought on eBay. The auction had caught my intrigue, it was written as this:
"I am selling all my art materials in One Job Lot due to house move.
9 sheets of 28" x 20" (70cm x 50cm) 170LB Clairefontaine Pastelmat
--Pastel pencils---
Soft and Hard pastels--Mounts of different sizes--
Watercolour Paper and Brushes--
Watercolour Pencils
Art Books and DVD's
There are a lot of New Pastel pencils and Pastels (see Photos)
There are too many items to count and photograph
Due to impending house move all must go together.
Collect Only"
There were a few photos in the auction but not enough to show exactly what was included. I did see a rather nice set of pastel pencils and a few other bits that made me feel it was worth a bid, so put a rather conservative bid, on the off-chance I might get very lucky, and then watched the final few minutes of the auction to see how much they would ultimately sell for. To my surprise, although the bids did go up, my maximum bid was the final selling price - I got them!
It was at this point that I thought I should check where she is, as it was specified "Collection Only". Now, Northampton is a pretty central place in the the UK, nowhere is all that far away... or so I thought!
Turns out it's quite a long way to Carmarthen, which is in the South West of Wales!! Now I realised why I'd got such a good price - getting all the way over there was no small feat!
Luckily, the lady selling the materials was very accommodating and gave me a few weeks to plan the trip and get organised. I had to book a day off work, I also arranged to pop in at Animal Artistry (in Hereford) on the way back, killing two birds with one stone*, so to speak.
*I really don't like that phrase, hows-about "grow two trees from one seed" - that's much better!
So, after much planning and conspiring, I got all my ducks in a row* and the day arrived. I was excited about my "Road Trip" and me and Jack (Black-Jack, my Smart Car) set off West-wards.
*I quite like that one, I've used it a few times recently
I noticed that the one thing there are a LOT of as you enter Wales, is bridges, lots and lots of bridges. Must be all those hills and valleys! They are quite pretty, most of them and usually just after the bridge you get a wonderful view across the Welsh landscape.
The M50 is the main road into South Wales, and I realised that this unusual building is becoming quite a landmark to me, I recognise it whenever I pass. Not that I go to South Wales often, but sometimes these things just stick in your mind.
The weather was not kind. After the drizzle came the rain, after the rain came the downpours, the typically Welsh weather welcomed me with all it had to offer!
I arrived at my destination at lunchtime, to a lovely small yet slightly soggy village made up mostly of bungalows. The lady came and met me outside so the only photo I took was as I left, with a very full car!
She made me a nice warming cuppa and we had a chat, where I discovered that the lady had been a watercolourist for many years, specialising in floral images (not botanical studies, much more impressionistic). The only image I can find is this one, it is typical of her work, they were all quite large (around 16x24") and they were all beautiful!
She had sold her work through London galleries for a long time, and then more recently had been producing dog drawings for a local animal charity to sell to raise funds. She must have produced hundreds, she showed me some but as she stopped a while ago, none are featured online sadly. I saw a few and they were extremely good!
So, after a wonderful hour or so discussing her artistic history, and her critiquing some of my work (gotta love smart phones and Dropbox!) and sharing some handy tips with me, she showed me to the items that were included in the eBay listing. When I saw six large boxes full of stuff, she casually said "Oh, I didn't have the energy to photograph it all for the listing, so I left a lot out and just thought that whoever buys it will be very pleased". Well, I can honestly say I am VERY pleased!! She also kept adding things to the lot while I was there, but I'll expand on that in a moment...
I didn't get to properly look through the boxes until later on. I had to pack up the car (in the rain which was tricky - pastels, pencils and paper do not like rain, and hot-foot over to Donna at Animal Artistry to pick up two china models she had for me. The route took me along the edge of the Brecon Beacons, the views were wonderful (especially given the weather) but dusk was drawing in and so I didn't get many clear photographs.
At one point, at mid-dusk when I was struggling to see with the low light and heavy rain, something caught my eye, I didn't realise what it was at first but it turned out to be a heron - nothing amazingly shocking about that... until he tried to swoop between my Smart car and a van in front, he realised a bit late that it was a tight manoeuvre and just about managed to squeeze past, swooping right in front of my car. I got to see the full nine feet of his wingspan, which, once I'd composed myself again, I realised was pretty awesome! Obviously I didn't get that in a photo (it would have been an amazing picture!), so here's another image from the Brecons.
I got to Donna's house after dark, much later than I'd hoped to. Even though I'd left Wales, the weather had followed me and it was cold, dark, wet and a windy when I arrived at her farmhouse and studios. Donna obligingly gave me a studio tour (even though I've been a few times before, I always love to see the models she has in progress). I didn't get any photos but as I know you're curious, here's a few I took during a previous visit :)
Donna packed up my china models, again, sadly I've not had enough daylight since to take more shots of them, but this is what I picked up (both will be offered for sale shortly so if you like either of them please let me know). Both are gorgeous examples of the models, the UJ has one blue eye and the Dancing Daisy is the first glazed copy to be offered for sale and sports a brand new colour design from Donna's team:
Now, Donna suffers from a similar affliction to me, it's called "lovesowningartmaterialstheywillneveruse-itis", and involves a wonderful fascination with owning art materials, even though they may not ever be used. When I arranged to meet up with Donna I told her about my new-to-me art materials and how much there was, and asked her if she would like to see what I had and maybe take some for her collection future use. So, the car was unloaded and we spent a wonderful hour or two going through every item in those six boxes!
Are you ready to see what I bought? Here we go:
Large paper items: Posh watercolour paper, plastic sleeves for artwork and large, hard-backed postage envelopes.
THAT pastel pencil set - this is what I was after from the original listing, isn't it lovely!
A huge array of hard and soft pastels, some had been taken from the sets and put into colour-sets in that clear plastic box to the right.
Card photo mounts, lots and lots and lots of them! Probably around 80 of them all-in!
Glassine - dozens of very large sheets - I tried to buy some of this recently and it was £1 a sheet! Glassine is used (by me) as a protective sheet that lies directly on the pastel painted surface during transport, it is very low-friction and so protects the finished artwork without rubbing it.
Clairefontane paper, I've not closely looked at this yet (any damp/oily fingermarks will show so I will look more when I'm calmer and have more space and time to carefully look at them. According to the listing there are nine sheets of 28" x 20" Clairefontane Pastelmat paper. I've not used this paper before and now look forward to being able to try it out more.
Various china palettes:
A small selection of wood/glass frames:
Then a big box full of loose pastel pencils. My heart skipped a beat when I saw they included such good brands - I've never been able to justify buying any Caran d'Ache pastel pencils, but now I have some I'm thrilled!
The box also contained lots of paper tortillons and even some colourshapers (which I normally use for sculpting)
Another box with sharpening and erasing doodads and wotsits:
More pastel pencils:
Even MORE pastel pencils:
Even MORE.... yeah, you get the idea:
There were also a selection of books on animal portraiture, artwork, and these:
...and even a few DVDs!
There was quite a lot of stuff that I am unlikely to use. I don't usually use watercolours, but these were included. There was a selection of sponges (natural and synthetic):
A box of small watercolours, high quality and unused:
A plethora or brushes!
And another wooden box with some larger, equally high quality but part-used watercolour tubes:
Then there was a bunch of other items including tracing papers, watercolour papers etc:
Thsi curious device, which I am looking forward to putting to use:
And finally this, it wasn't part of the original auction but the lady added it, saying that if I worked with pastels I should have an extractor of some sort. It is labelled as an air purifier but I think it draws fine dust particles out of the air. This could be very useful as I am an asthma sufferer and will benefit from a reduction in fine dust in the air.
Donna and I had a grand old time going through all the items, even involving her family as everyone had a good mooch in amongst the new items. Sadly I had to leave for home, so it all had to be boxed back up and put back into the car ready for the long drive home. I left at... 6:51pm (apparently) and arrived home at 9:30pm. Me and Jack covered over 450 miles, it wasn't an easy drive either so when I got home, I was too tired to unpack!
The following day I was back at work, but I had a bit of a problem - I had to take Bruno to the in-laws as they look after him during the day for us. It's only a very short drive but I couldn't walk him there, so we had to make-do. I wouldn't recommend this as a way to transport your dog, but when you drive a Smart car and it is full of boxes of art materials, you just have to make-do!
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