#miningart

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Our art class held a private exhibition allowing us to have a nice day to enjoy some niblets and see the mining art we’d all done these past months; set-up for display on the stage in the village hall. Though there were plenty to go around, I’m still happy I bought my own plastic mounts: they worked really well and I know will come in handy again someday.

As someone who is very proud to be a Northerner, I’ve really been enjoying our work on the local coal mining history. It’s a subject that lends itself well to different subjects and ideas. I’ve still got big plans to do more pieces based on the subject. Perhaps I can display them for our public exhibition, said to be in August*.

It was such a joy to see everyone’s work in frames and proudly on display. I can hardly describe the joy I felt to be a part of it. I’m pretty much the “baby” of the class and yet I was amongst professionals that liked my work. People were fond of my coal miner on A2 paper - even though he wasn’t done. But Trish did say that we could show unfinished pieces. The other pieces I brought were the study sketched I did when I visited the Mining Art Gallery and a new comic-inspired, double piece that I nearly made myself ill drawing. 

Remind me to never try and do two pictures in only two days again. EVER. 

I’ll talk more about the process behind the comic pages when I upload them. But let’s just say I really pushed my limits in terms of what I thought I could do or get done in such a short amount of time. For a couple of reasons, I only had two days to pencil and ink the two pages. Early 5:00am mornings now combined with staying up past midnight to finish them. Even as I called my mum to tell her about it, she noticed how tired and drained I sounded, in spite of my joy. But rest assured, I was and (as of typing this) still full of beans! 

Once I got back home, I had a celebratory drink with my neighbour. As soon as he saw me at his door, he was chuffed to hear all about it. My comic made him laugh a lot harder than I thought it would. Then it was back to my home to order myself a comforting Chinese takeaway and embrace the slacker lifestyle for the weekend. 

Even today as I have a well-deserved rest, I’m as happy as a clam! I feel a sense of joy and pride in myself I haven’t experienced in a long, long time. I’ve pushed myself further than I thought I could and have reaped the rewards. Combine this with so many other great things happening to be lately with my art; Be it the Dolan Kart contest, the comments I’ve been getting since joining twitter, the feedback from professional artist in my class, and I feel a (rarely experienced) sense of hope for my future and career. 

Let’s hope I can improve more from here.