Thursday 30 July 2015

Planning Museum and Gallery Visits...

Now that Serena's website is complete with it's own domain name, I'm considering a few visits to museums and galleries within the East Midlands so I'll have some interesting items to share here and on Serena's blog. And of course they will be research trips too.

I need to be able to complete the visit in a day, either by bus or train - I may even need to use both!

Locally, Nottingham Contemporary has an exhibition called The Grand Tour; this currently has loans of fine and decorative art from Chatsworth (the popular stately home in Derbyshire) but set among work by contemporary artist Pablo Bronstein, with Baroque inspirations.

Visiting a museum...
Over in Derby, there's a few museums to visit, but I'll be going to Pickford House as it has the Museum of Georgian Life and Historic Costume- the research side of the trip.

It's always interesting to see the different versions of Georgian life, as so often it's big stately homes that get visited.

The Museum and Art Gallery in Derby also has a Grand Tour event. This is a display of paintings by Joseph Wright, 'The Colosseum by Moonlight' alongside 'The Colosseum, by Daylight' are featured.

The Moonlight painting has apparently had "extensive overpainting by an enthusiastic restorer during the 20th century". It's going to begin a conservation process this autumn, so the next time it's seen by the public it will look more like it once did.

It's easy to miss what's happening locally when you live in a city with so many events, and what's available in other locations within travelling distance.

Do you have a gallery or museum that puts on tours or events you can visit?







Image courtesy of digidreamgrafix &http://freedigitalphotos.net











Monday 27 July 2015

Almost There...

It was a busy weekend, as I was trying to get everything still to do for Serena's website and remaining social media links completed.

Although I published Serena's first proper blog post on Saturday and it could be read via my links, it wasn't showing up on the blog page I'd created. Clearly I hadn't done something I should have and I couldn't see what it was... :(

After consulting fellow writers: Patsy Collins and poet, Liz Brownlee who both have Wordpress sites, I finally found what I needed to do. It did mean changing pages and moving text, but finally this evening everything went where it should- and worked.

Tomorrow I'll start the domain mapping process to apply Serena's domain name - and pay the annual fee for doing so.

Meanwhile, Serena now has a Facebook page to go with the  existing Twitter account...

My pictures from my trip to Bath last year have begun to be helpful. Beside my lady with a fan, you will probably be seeing the dancing figures- these were on the wall in the Fashion Museum and represent the different positions in a dance- sadly I didn't make a note of what the dance was...

All I need now is to get on with the Nottinghamshire novella/potential short novel.

I've probably got another three to four chapters left of my contemporary romance to write, and as soon as that draft is completed, I'll be returning to Hugh and Sarah's historical romance story.

I'm amazed how much I've managed in a little over a week. And now that's done I can concentrate on writing, knowing the support framework is in place and there when I need it...

How to dance...