It’s no big secret I would love for nothing more than to become a full time professional artist. Making money from doing something you love so passionately I suspect is everyone’s utopian dream.

My facebook friends have been my close companions as I rise at the crack of dawn to paint not because of my love for my art but because I have a day job which is of course a necessary evil. We must work if we want to eat.

I have to say having to report daily to my FB buddies has given me the motivation to get up early and to paint so regularly. Without their interest and eagerness to see me at the next stage in the development of each painting I am not sure I would give it quite as much energy. So for that I am grateful.

Over the last couple of days I have been nursing a toothache and that has hampered my progress somewhat. It has amused me to see messages of sympathy supported by tried and tested remedies after a recent post. It is nice to see so many people interested in my physical wellbeing as they are in my work.  I have had a radiating toothache and the dentist can’t offer a proper explanation for this pain just yet so I am dosed up with Co Codamol and antibiotics. I do know I have stress fractures in my molars caused by clamping my teeth tightly as I sleep and I do know for a fact that my love in the past for chewing gum has contributed to this somewhat.

Being of an entrepreneurial mind I have toyed with the idea of inventing the first nocturnal molar shields but that’s all its going to be at the moment. An idea but if you ever see it out there… remember you read about it here first.

Well just to bring you all up to scratch and on a par with my FB buddies, friends and supporters, here is my current painting ‘Brighton Fair’ in progress.
Stay tuned. Stay focused.  Stay blessed!

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Sometimes sharing a view can help you unwind what appears to be a complicated issue. Until my last post, I’d been struggling with what I thought was an issue of identity until several people came to my rescue and helped me to realise I was probably dealing more with an sense of belonging. Thanks to all who sent email and twitter messages though you would be doing my ego no end of good if you were to post your replies on my blog as well. It kinda helps raise my profile.

Market Woman Selling Tomatoes (Ghana)

Needless to say I am quite happily settled and painting stuff I like to paint. I say this because for a number of years I have been trying to launch myself as a professional painter. By this I mean I would like to earn over 80% of my income from my paintings. One thing I have done is to conduct my art as though it were a business; to try and spend as much time marketing myself as I spend in studio. With this in mind I found myself a mentor and learned very quickly that if I wanted to make it as an artist then I  ought to paint what people want. This is good business advice if you understand economic and the laws of supply and demand however am beginning to think as an artist that this can lead to one making rather a lot of compromises. I finally decided there are better painters out there who can paint the lake district or the peak district and whilst I am not ruling myself out of doing these areas I want to concentrate more on the subjects that give me pleasure on the basis that out there there will be another soul who’s love of my paintings will resonate with mine enough for them to dig deep and make a purchase. I have sold many paintings before, I am just trying to increase the frequency of sales.

So crisis averted I have been considering why it is I love to paint so much. I’ve had to consider this in response to a competition I entered recently and this is my part of my response; ‘

…if you have ever read a book that has been so captivating you can’t put it down, you will probably come close to understanding why I love to paint so much. For me it’s like climbing through a vista into another world where I can lose myself to my imagination. When I return, I want to bring something back with me that others can enjoy as well and when it resonates with them, I feel like a certain magic has passed between us’.

My most recent painting ‘Market Woman Selling Tomatoes’ probably describes this feeling. Even though I sketch a lot, I love to capture the moment with a camera and this was one I took in Ghana during my last visit.

Here are a few thumbnails so you can see the process. I am enjoying the use of abstract shapes in the background and the use of gold paint though in the not to distant future I will be using gold leaf. Enjoy… and don’t forget to add your comments below.

Step 1 prime the background

Step 2 – Drawing & Shading

Step 3 – Adding Colour

Step 4 Adding Detail

Step 5 – All Done

This is something of an admission and perhaps you can all help me settle it in my mind once and for all. You see for a long time I have struggled to define myself as an artist of sorts. What best describes my art? I come across this issue every time I feel the need to update my artist statement. The thing is am I an African artist? I know I am an artist and I come from Africa (Ghana) but when we talk about African art does my art identify with what has commonly come to be known as ‘African’ art?

A street scene in New York

This fishing village scene shows people at work

Even as I write I’m finding it difficult to describe exactly what I mean as African art has all kinds of definitions and I don’t really want to write an essay on the subject. There’s the tourist stuff; you  know the women with long necks, spindly legs with babies on their backs and pots on their heads and then there are the  portraits with tribal marks masses of beads around their necks and intricately braided hair. Wikipedia attempts a definition: the art of sub Saharan Africa but what exactly is that? Wikipedia does admit people often generalize traditional African art and that the continent is full of people, societies and civilizations each with a unique visual culture. One thing is certain that the art was of a utilitarian nature and involved the use of very bright colours with patterns of a rather abstract nature.

The Majorelle Gardens in Morocco

I am comfortable painting a street scene in Northampton

I am very attracted to extremely bright colours but I feel this is more of an expression rather than something that is inherently in my nature. I’ve always felt the strong bright colours and patterns found in my art were down to my African heritage and perhaps they are but I often wonder if this is a product of learned behaviour? Am I sub-consciously pandering to an expectation that this is what I should produce?

Women gossiping at the market

Ah, I get so confused and perhaps I am putting too much thought into it. I like to paint what I see in front of me and this ranges from a single flower, to an expansive panoramic landscape whilst picking up studies of people at work or children at play along the way. I am happy to make these studies wherever I am; in the UK where I live, my native Ghana or on holiday in the US or Morocco.

Berber women in Morocco

Does it matter? Perhaps it doesn’t. Not all my art is recognizably African and perhaps that’s because I try to avoid painting what I feel people expect to see from an ‘African’ artist. I don’t know that I do this consciously but when I do try to identify myself as an African artist I feel I don’t always meet the criteria I have as yet not been able to define.

For now, I am an African, I am an artist and I live in the UK. It doesn’t much matter in what order those three statements are made.

Well the glass is both half full and half empty at the moment. Day 12 of #FindAnnesPaintings dawned and I was optimistic as usual although as the morning wore on I started to feel a little anxious again. Oville had said he would call me ‘in just a moment’ yesterday and then went quiet. So another assault on Twitter’s @citylink was called for. This time I had a new hashtag #WhereMyPaintingsAt?

I have every reason to be smiling this evening.

 Anyway the Lord has answered our prayer and managed to point these guys down the right track  because I received a phone call from a lovely guy called Tom from the Milton Keynes depot. He seemed friendly and polite and told me he had taken over my ‘case’. More platitudes? Well I have to give a guy the benefit of the doubt don’t I. I am not an unreasonable person.

Well,the good news is that they have found the paintings (yaaaaay) and  the not so good news is I won’t be getting them back just yet (booo hisss) but for now that is good enough for me. Let me explain; the driver who’s name I can reveal as Moment (yes yes as in Moment in time), had indeed delivered the paintings to the depot but because they were too large and too bulky to go on the conveyor belt, he carried them to the scanner to be er… scanned.

However that area is also Amazon’s returns depot. Can you see where this is going? Well some jobsworth came along, slapped a return to Amazon label on my beloved paintings and off they went on a jolly to Glenrothes, Scotland. I have to be thankful – it could have been Papua New Guinea so at least we are on the same island (just). The small problem is Amazon’s depot in Glenrothes is the size of a small city so even though they have found the right haystack, there is still the very small matter of finding the needle. Hopefully in the next few days we will know when I will be reunited with the paintings. So I am declaring a ceasefire for now.

Still I think they have done a good job. Pity I had to make a nuisance of myself to make them listen. Sorry folks, I am a nice person really but you probably don’t think so. We live in an age now where the consumer has power. Social Media can help us in many ways we thought impossible, we will not be fobbed off so my dear Citylink – don’t pull a stunt like that again and you will see your tills ringing with the £500m annual turnover you want to achieve. Just stay focussed on ‘getting it right first time…’

CityLink clearly have a lot of issues and they may be addressing them but as a customer we don’t feel it. However I have to say Tom and Oville – well done and thank you. You have made one artist and her customer a very happy pair.

That’s it for now folks. I will let you know when my parcels are returned to me. I need to make sure they are still intact and then I will send them off to the customer by a different courier company. Sorry CityLink but I can’t risk another saga like this besides all my friends will think I am a proper lemon for trusting you so quickly. I will be keeping an eye on your progress. You can do it – just stay focussed.

Thank you Father

Te Deum Laudamus

yaaaaaaaayyyyyyy – sorry just needed to add this last bit.

My ego has taken a bit of a knock this past weekend! I’ve always boasted I don’t have much of an ego and so I am a little ashamed to say this but in the spirit of good and honest blogging I need to share this with you.

You see ever since I was selected for the Brighton Art Fair earlier this year I have been on a bit of a trip. I do like juried selections to art shows, competitions and exhibitions because it validates my abilities as an artist. I don’t always get selected when I apply  and that adds to the enigma but when I do get chosen, well all I can say is that it strokes my ‘non-existent’ ego no end.

At the Brighton Art Fair (c) Anne Blankson-Hemans

Anyway as I was saying, I was selected and I duly arrived and set up. The show for me was fantastic, loads and loads of people flowed through the doors over the four day period and loads and loads of interest but alas no sales!

I shouldn’t really be upset about the lack of sales,  you kinda learn to take the rough with the smooth but there is something that passes between you the artist and the beholder also known as the buyer which my friend Amy described in a previous blog as ‘some kind of magic’ and regardless of what anyone says that magic consists in the main of about 80% ego I think.

So after the euphoria of the weekend I crashed big time. I’ve been disconsolate bordering almost on depression. I say this honestly and only fleetingly because it is not a place in which I like to dwell. So with some ‘birthday’ money from Seiwa and seriously strict instructions to spend it only on myself, I went shopping and here is what I brought back; dark chocolate: sumptuous orange, dark chocolate with Wasabi; dark chocolate with chilli and from my beloved Ghana Divine dark chocolate with ginger and orange!!! My chocolate heaven included a movie courtesy of Virgin Media.

When only chocolate will do!

Now that my ego has been placated I have been able to focus on all the good things from this weekend’s show; the gallery owner who likes my snow paintings and wants me to join her gallery, the online gallery owner who wants me to join her site, the community art exhibition that is taking place in Brighton this weekend and the loads and loads and loads of email contacts I can add to my mailing list and I guess above all the comments I received; here are some of them…

‘great impact!’, splendid colours’, ‘great technique and use of colour’ , ‘beautiful creations’, ‘such gorgeous colours’, ‘colour, life, composition, you’ve got it all’, ‘beautiful and vibrant’,

and my personal favourite…

‘very bright and colourful art which made me feel happy!’

This morning my Bible word for today was – The Secret of Fulfilment – Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 – There is a time for everything, a time to weep and a time to laugh and I guess a time to sell paintings and a time to show them… so everyone feels happy!

Te Deum Laudamus