Steve Bonner – Artist – The Blog
Personal musings, notes about the joy of painting – and the trials of trying to sell the bloody things and earn a crust!
Steve Bonner’s Art Gallery
Steve Bonner's Art Gallery - Wittering Walk, East WitteringYes, as unbelievable as it may seem, I now have a High Street presence. Well, I use the term High Street loosely, it's actually in Wittering Walk, off The Parade here in East Wittering, and it is small, very...
They’re going in the bin!
No! Not the paintings, my business cards.I figure I can save Art Gallery proprietors the time and trouble of having to dispose of them one by one. Thoughts on Art Gallery submissions As it happens I'm not represented by a single UK gallery, nope, not one, and I think...
A Golden Age…
......of Computers!And, sadly, this isn't it! Now I'm no Computer Geek but I've always been relatively comfortable sat at a keyboard (I blogged previously about my website building history) but I don't think it's ever been as bloody taxing as it is today. Is there a...
I’ve lived too long!
.....the East European supervisor descended on me as he might a Russian Boy Scout who'd failed his Map Reading Badge!Down in East Wittering, just a few hundred yards from our home, we benefit from a mobile Re-cycling Centre every other Thursday. When we moved here...
Paradise – not so much lost, more misappropriated!
I adore painting in oils and there's one aspect of illustration which has always fascinated me - the barely discernable transformation of rock into cloud, and I'm talking about paint here as the active ingredient - not dynamite!When I was a kid my father had a copy of...
Shark attacks Wittering bathers!
Er, sorry about that, it hasn't of course, or not that I'm aware of anyway, although I believe someone was once stung by a jellyfish (possibly an instinctive and understandable reaction to swimmers choice of bathing apparel). I've mentioned before that my blogs are...
The Partridge Inn, Singleton – No colour allowed!
The 'locals', it seems, don't like colour on the pub signs!You know, I wrestled with putting this post up at all, but then, in keeping with the old adage "Never piss off a signwriter"* I thought to myself, why the hell not! Harry Hotspur, wasn't it, that Shakespeare...
I’ve got a backlog……
A backlog of pub chalkboards. Damn!Sounds a little ungrateful doesn't it. The trouble is yesterday the sun moved north of the Equator - Spring has sprung - and I want to be starting on a new dawn oil painting - you know, all fresh, clean, blues and pinks. I've always...
Full-up!
"Stacking - Bracklesham" 50 x 50 cm Acrylic on canvasOne afternoon the week before last I was painting in my studio when I put down my brushes, went into the house, and said to Ruth "You know, sometimes I get so full-up I could burst!" I'd been working on the...
That’s a little more like it!
It's a good blog this - well, I like it:-) Give it a read - 2 minutes tops.Those of you who read my last blog may recall my mentioning 'Billy's on the Beach', a great little restaurant down in Bracklesham. Billy's have had a couple of my pieces on their walls for a...
Wave Study 6
Wave Study? Look's like another woodland scene to me!Y'know, it's good to be painting again! It may surprise you to learn that except for pub chalkboards (of which there have been many - see here) I've not touched a paintbrush since October last year. Not a single...
If you go down to the woods today….
...you're sure of a big surprise. Bloody artist is down here again!Second in the Woodland Path Series, and once again painted in acrylic with just the three tools - a 3" brush, a No4 Signwriting brush, and a sponge. This one, of course, is landscape in format and is...
Holt Down Woodland
Makes a change from waves don't you think?A few years ago, back when I thought there was any point to posting in Facebook, and even, on occasion, 'putting a jockey on it' as my pal Martin would say (a 'cant' expression - it means paying to expediate something,...
Lobis (1875-1905) – Bei Igels – Cleaned and restored
Cleaning underway. Not one of J.Lobis's best Austrian Landscapes, from what I've seen online, but I think it's enchanting.I don't know if you've found the same but local authority recycling centers seem to vary enormously. When we lived at Coles, up in the Hampshire...
The Curl – No.1
Me? I can’t swim a stroke – you may recall I spoke of my power floating in a previous blog. I can, especially in the Caribbean, float around for hours and in a calm sea I can cover a considerable distance – on my back – but it has it’s downside. I can see where I’ve...
Low Tide – West Wittering
This months featured painting: Low tide - West Wittering(This painting is now SOLD)I've painted another one! In case you're an avid reader of my blogs (is there such an animal, I wonder) you may well look at the picture above thinking "Haven't I seen that before?"...
WordPress? Nooo!
So who wants to have a go at building a website?I think I built my first website back in 1998, or was it later? I know I'd already done it when my pal Pete, for whom I was working at the time (only part-time, don't panic) sent me on a course in 2000 – it felt a bit...
Featuring the best, funniest, letter I’ve EVER read!
The following is one of my original blogs, again written on Googles 'Blogger' platform back in 2013. What the title and sub-title mean I've long since forgotten - I do recall that I put them there for the benefit of the Russian web-bots referred to in the post - I...
Painting – and the Art of One-upmanship.
First published on Googles Blogspot Thursday, 3 April 2014 I've been putting together a new version of my Paintings of the Caribbean website – a friend helpfully pointed out that the existing one was looking a little tired – so kind! Now, the old one gets a lot of...
Alleynes Bay – for me, a special painting
One of the joys of being is painter is having the ability to capture time, place, and memories in a unique way: far more than a simple holiday snap ever could. It's always been my intention not to paint these tropical beaches exactly as they are but more as they're...
Stoned – painting pebbles, old and new
First published Sept 15th, 2017 ‘Run Aground’ Oil on painted edge box canvas. 24″ x 36″ Available Why did I ever think it would be a good idea to paint a close-up study of a pebble beach on the high tide line? Not my first attempt as a few years ago I painted...
Royal Society? Pah!
First posted 24/08/2017 on Blogger Well, as you may have guessed from the headline the selection committee at the Mall Galleries decided they didn’t want my painting Groyne No2 for this years exhibition – well, it’s their loss! Pah! Ah, you say, a little bit of sour...
One out of three ain’t bad!
First posted 10/07/2017 on Blogger Those of you who kindly read this a couple of weeks ago (a select few :-), will no doubt remember that I mentioned submitting my work for this years Royal Society of Marine Artists exhibition. Well, the digital selection finished...
Shock Horror!
First posted 29/06/2017 on Blogger I sometimes wonder how I’ve ever managed to sell any paintings at all, let alone make an approximation of a living from them – but somehow I do. I’m not represented by a single UK gallery of note (various reasons – largely...
Hurrah! Blog’s back!
First posted 20/01/2017 on Blogger I recently came across a resource site for artists called ‘Art Store Front’. They’re a hosting gallery and print shop primarily and consequently not a lot of use to me as I persist, for better or worse, in doing that myself – but...
Sudden Death in the Hampshire Wood
Originally posted Friday, 27th November, 2015 on Google BlogspotLike many of us I find I’m increasingly bewildered by the downright stupidity I seem to encounter on an almost daily basis.As many of you will know we live in a house surrounded by 26 acres of woodland...
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About my blog - The Art of Being Overlooked
I’ve been blogging now for seven years, on two different platforms and over time I’ve deleted almost all. A few however have survived and I’ve resurrected them here.
In that time the comments on my posts have included 4,500 invitations to try Viagra or strike up an online liason with undoubtedly charming Eastern European ladies of dubious virtue, 3,500 unintelligable invitations in Russian, and a few hundred in Arabic and various Asian scripts.
Actual comments relating to the blog – there were two! Just two in seven years!
You’re very welcome to comment on any of them, I’ll be delighted if you comment on any of them – but I shan’t be holding my breath.
Pip, pip,
SB