I went to an art exhibition yesterday.

Quite a different thing for me to do, with my little family.

The painter is the husband of a colleague of mine and he was exhibiting his artworks at the local gallery.  I took the children a few years back to another exhibition of his, but they were much younger, so it didn’t mean much, other than being able to say they had seen their teacher there! Having said that, Lil Princess was definitely touched by what she saw that day, and wanted to paint!

His name is Duncan Grant. Not the other, slightly more well known Duncan Grant, who was also an artist!

No, this Duncan Grant is a local gent! And his paintings are heavily influenced by his surroundings, as well as whatever he is thinking of at the time!

After the first exhibition, Duncan was rather unwell, and after a long stint in hospital his styles altered slightly, but his work was, and still is, pretty amazing!

The top painting is actually a self-portrait from when he was unwell.

Here is a series of three landscape paintings, portraying the Thames and the view we have from here of Essex. The top painting is of fishermen gathering their nets.

The painting below just made me giggle!

Lil Man was pretty impressed with this next one as it is where he plays cricket!

I shall quote from his website, which you can find here.

I was born in Gravesend, Kent in 1965 and am proud to be from the bottom right hand corner of Britain where I still live.

In my work, I try to express the strange goings on inside my head and using shape, colour and texture, show my own interpretations of what I see in nature and also my own take on everyday life.

My style of art is self-taught and I paint mainly sitting on the sofa listening to the TV with a small, hairy Jack Russell terrier at my side – my paint covered sofa bears testament to this!

I enjoy painting and I am pleased that people appreciate my work. I work full-time in the real world and I live happily in Gravesend with my wife Davina, two cats (Charlie and Katie) and two Jack Russell terriers (Maisie and Billy).

Something else rather cool. A few years back, Duncan was trying to hone his people painting skills, and he threw open an offer. Send me your photo so I can paint you and practice painting people. I did this and the final portrait was wonderful! But I never got round to actually buying it from him, for one reason or another.

Well, yesterday, when we got there, he handed me a bag with my very own Duncan Grant original painting in it! And refused to accept any payment! I was touched!

The original photo and the painting. So cool!

And here’s a proud me carrying my priceless piece!

A bit of a cultural evening, followed by the kids eating Macdonalds… Ever sophisticated are we!!!!!

But great to support a local artist, and friend!

What did you do this weekend?