A watercolour postcard home

Lucky lucky me - I recently got a freebie set of watercolour postcards from Cass Art in Liverpool. When we took our week's vacation in Wales this last week, I knew that I would have lots of spare time as my daughter and her friend had tonnes of revision to do for their forthcoming A levels. What better way to spend it than painting?!

If you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen that I regularly walk my friend's Fox Red Labrador (who has the most impossibly short and cutest legs that I have ever seen on a lab) so the first postcard home was addressed to Rory. We were staying on the coast in Wales, and Rory is a HUGE fan of water....



Next on the list was my wonderful Dad. He used to breed budgies when he was a lad, and I now own two beautiful budgies that we are hoping will breed, so it made perfect sense to me to paint my budgies at the seaside for him



I was wondering what to paint next when a seagull flew by. My in-laws live by the sea and love bird watching, so this was for them...



My very dear friend has an elderly black labrador who's beach visiting days are sadly over, he can't walk very far at all these days



What next? We met a very friendly bunch of sheep (yes, I know that they are really a flock, but such friendly animals deserve a friendlier collective noun) so my Aunt got this one



Now feeling in a VERY silly mood, my other aunt loves orchids and is very good at persuading them to flower year after year



And that's my postcard list covered :D

I still had time to spare, so on my facebook page I asked what else I should take to the beach...this suggestion pinged right back to me!



Do you think this counts as proof of posting? Hehehee



And here are all my paintings from our short stay. What fun!




Sketch Diary April 2015

Oh dear me a whole month has passed without me writing any blog posts! If you've missed me you can connect with me on facebook, twitter or instagram, I'm around and chatting most days on those platforms :)

Here's a brief glimpse into my life during April

week 14

week 15

week 16

week 17

week 18

Sketch diary March 2015

Here are my sketch diary entries for March 2015.



week 10

week 11

week 12

week 13
You can see February's entries here and if you'd like to keep up with me on a weekly basis you can follow my diary on facebook here

Sketch Diary February 2015

Boy I'm late showing you February's sketch diary entries, it'll almost be time for the March sketches! Still, better late than never....

Week Six

Week Seven

Week Eight

Week Nine

You can see January's entries here

Turner's Fighting Temeraire in Miniature

Do you subscribe to the Dolls House and Miniature Scene Magazine? 

I have a 4 page article in the latest edition that shows you how to recreate JMW Turner's Fighting Temeraire. Here's an extract from page 2:





This was not an easy painting to do! I painted it three times in preparation for this article, the first one was the wrong colour (too much red)...




The second one's sky was too busy and dominant (although I have to say, this one is my favourite)



And the third one came out truer to the original.




If you have a go I'd be very interested to see your results, if you post them on my facebook page I'll share them with my followers!

Reply to UKIP's Mr Sen in response to their "Clockgate" open letter to me

By chance yesterday I came across an open letter from UKIP to myself on the UKIP West Lancs website. Since UKIP have denied me a right of reply, I have published my return letter to them below.

EDIT: I omitted to say that, unlike Mr Sen, I did the courtesy of emailing this letter to him more than 24 hours before publicly publishing it. With no acknowledgement and no appearance of my letter on their website as requested, my only recourse was to publish it here and on my blog.

Dear Mr Sen, 
Thank you for your open letter to me which I stumbled across this morning. I do not frequent this website often and am fortunate indeed that I found yourletter and am able to respond.

Most of the points you raise in your letter were discussed with you at length on my facebook page last night, however since you have now deleted all of your comments, along with some of my replies to those comments, I will respond again here. 

  • Regardless of UK copyright law (which guards against theft of all images whether they are created by professional artists, hobby artists or students) it is common courtesy to ask permission before taking an image and using it at will. A simple reverse image search would have brought you right back to my website from where you could have easily contacted me. The answer would have been a polite no, and “Clockgate” as you are now referring to it would never have happened. I am alarmed that even now, in possession of the relevant copyright facts, you still seem to think that it is OK to use the work of students and hobby artists without asking for permission first. 
  • I have NOT known about this for months as you claimed last night in one of your (now deleted) facebook comments, nor have I known about it for more than 6 weeks as you now state. 
  • I contacted the echo just over a week ago as I felt it was important to highlight UKIP’s lack of commitment to your manifesto pledge of ‘Protecting jobs and increasing prosperity’ and the local party’s statement that ‘UKIP will incentivise small businesses’ - not, as you imply, to self publicise or to politicise. 
  • At no time have I claimed any hardship and I have not at any time asked for any financial compensation for your use of my painting.
  • I stress that I do not want my work associated with ANY political party, your being UKIP is completely irrelevant.
  • The UKIP response to the Echo newspaper group acknowledged the image and promised to remove it ASAP. That message was passed on to me last Thursday so you have had a week to take it down, plenty of time to action your website developers. Furthermore, contrary to your (now deleted) facebook comments last night, at no time did I request that my details should be kept from you.
  • I do not deny that I wanted to maximise impact and I stand by my comments on my facebook page; indeed you will notice that I have not deleted any of them. The issue of copyright theft is very important to ordinary working artists and photographers and this kind of thing needs to be brought into the spotlight.
  • If visitors to my facebook page feel strongly enough to contact you then that is their absolute democratic right. 


Now addressing your reporter’s points in the blog post but not included in your letter to me.

  • The article was not printed in the Liverpool Echo, only in the smaller Ormskirk Advertiser - a weekly publication relevant to the people of Ormskirk. 
  • It really does not matter how much of your website the image occupies, it was still used without permission and I find your unwillingness to acknowledge this fact disconcerting. Again, it doesn’t matter that the piece’s title and my name were missing – a quick and easy reverse image search would have found me. 
  • Further, if you click on the Pinterest link that you have provided in your blog post you will be taken directly to my old shop. This shop is now empty but my name is very clearly provided along with contact details and a redirection to find my new shop. 
  • I only came across your open letter to me by chance. You posted some, but not all, of the content on my facebook page last night, content which you have now deleted.


Finally, as a dedicated mother myself, I am utterly horrified that you have brought your 3 year old daughter into this discussion. Regardless of whether your wife and daughter chose the image for the banner, it was very clearly your decision to use it on your website. I find it appalling that you feel it is acceptable to hide behind your 3 year old, exposing her to media attention in this way. I sincerely hope that you have not made her feel in any way to blame for her father’s current predicament. 

Since there is no way for me to create a login ID in order to publically respond on your blog I would like to exercise my right of reply and expect to have this letter published in full within 24 hours alongside your open letter to me. 

If you’d like to communicate with me, please feel free to write to me via email on StephanieGuyFineArt@gmail.com – something you could quite easily have done all along if only you had done that reverse image search. 

Kind regards,
Stephanie Guy

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You can read Mr Sen's letter to me here 

West Lancs UKIP have stolen my Ormskirk Clock Tower image to use on their website!

West Lancs UKIP have stolen my Ormskirk Clock Tower image to use on their website!

They didn't ask for permission and didn't credit me as the artist. Supporting local businesses? I think not. They have apologised but still not taken it down - why do they think that this is OK?

This is the image



And this is their website

http://www.ukipwestlancs.org/

They've had a week to take it down and it's still there. I'm not a happy bunny!