There are certain land marks in an artist career and one of them for me is getting into the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) exhibition (& later be a member of their Society).


The ROI was founded in 1882 and is the only British Art Society that promotes work of the highest standard exclusively in oils.They hold an annual exhibition in the Mall Galleries in London.
I tried for the first time last year and had 2 paintings selected – which means through to the first round but didn’t get hung in the show. 
Today I am going to the Mall Galleries because I’ve had 3 paintings selected, very excited! (see pic above) 
The first round is judged on line with digital images. The next stage is taking the framed paintings so they can judge to whether they are through into the exhibition! Oh my!
The last few days I have been painting the above frames and making them as good as I can, fingers crossed I hope to get one painting through!  I will let you know next week when I find out ????

I have also been preparing for a Venice trip leaving Tuesday this week, for 6 nights. Really excited to be going to Venice and paint for the first time, I have been just once before in 2012 and wasn’t doing outside painting then so just sketched. 
I have been making boards and more boards!! I don’t want to run out. 

I hope to blog when I’m there, depending on if I get any time in between painting! Otherwise I will catch up at home.

Lastly back in the summer I won 2 prizes with the Artist Magazine one was with Royal Talens receiving £250 worth of art materials.  I choose Rembrandt which is artist quality paint, it arrived yesterday and the colours look amazing (I’ve not used them before), a bonus I can take some with me to Venice, yay!