Tickets for the Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition at the National Gallery

Well yesterday I went down to London with the intention of visiting the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery as there had been so much hype and excitement about it. Unfortunately, in my naivety, I did not think that I might have to book tickets beforehand. So, much was my disappointment when i got to the ticket desk and there was a sign saying 'Sold Out Today'.

On further investigation it seems that the tickets for the da Vinci exhibition had been on sale since May 2011 and all of the online tickets and advance purchase tickets had already been snapped up - until the end of the exhibition! So the only way to get tickets now is either to buy them from someone who already has some but maybe can't make it (you could try eBay but they are going for more than £50 a ticket on there at the moment), or you will have to go and queue up at the National Gallery on the morning of the day you want to visit.

The gallery are releasing a limited number of tickets each day on a first come first served basis so if you get there early and queue up then you may be lucky!

However, if you are not lucky enough to get tickets then there is still a lot of amazing artwork by many great masters at the National Gallery - including van Gogh, Canaletto, Monet, Manet, Rubens, Constable, Seurat etc etc the list goes on and it takes hours to go through all of the halls and rooms. One of the paintings on show is one of van Gogh's sunflower paintings, shown here, and you really get a feel for the depth of it in real life than when just looking at a picture - the same can be said about a lot of the great masters paintings so if you do have a few hours free, go and have a browse.

UAE Art Competition

Emirates NBD are running an art competition in conjunction with Tashkeel (great place by the way) - where you can win cash prizes of up to 20,000 AED and membership of Tashkeel. There is not long to go until the entry closing date (they never seem to allow much time for these things in Dubai) of November 24th so get creating! Full details are on the image attached.

Quiet Time

So things are a bit quiet at the moment. Having headed back to Dubai for about 6 weeks i decided that it was now really too expensive to live there on my own and that i would have to come back to the UK. One problem was the lack of places to sell art anymore - previously Arte had been good with it's once a month art and craft fairs but now it was getting full of artists, a lot of whom were hobby artists and willing to sell their paintings for very little money. This then puts pressure on the professional artists, who have much higher costs to cover, to actually be able to sell and make money.

Another problem was with the general downturn of a few years where there were less hotel jobs around. It doesn't really help that I am not a salesperson and to be a success i think you really have to sell yourself.

So for the time being I will be based in the UK again, but available to go back to Dubai for any large jobs that may crop up. I will also likely be at the jazz festival again next February where sales are usually forthcoming.

This weekend I have 3 paintings in an art exhibition in Woodbridge, Suffolk so am hoping for a sale from there, and after that I have a possible craft fair at a local tennis club that I just need to confirm.