Charity exhibition on display in Casemates

Annette Heywood from The Water Art Studio is exhibiting at the Arts and Crafts Shop in Casemates, with the proceeds going to animal charity SOS Perrera Los Barrios and the Gibraltar Alzheimer’s and Dementia Society.

The artist started out doing nail varnish water art and now her portfolio includes acrylic art, acrylic pour art and resin art including creating items as small as trinket boxes.

Her exhibition includes some of these trinket boxes with matching jewellery, cheese boards, trays, cake stands and vases all in an array of colours and some that incorporate different stones.

Giving a short description of how the she creates her trays she said.

“I mix colours into the resin and I pour it and swirl it around until I get the pattern I want and then I heat it.”

“It doesn’t take long to do itself, the longest part is the drying time which is 24 hours but curing time can take longer.”

She cannot pick a favourite piece, “because I like something about all of it,” she said.

In addition to these functional pieces she has created a variety of paintings.

While clearly she is talented, she is not professionally trained in creating her pieces. She comes from the school of YouTube and trial and error.

“I have picked it up from YouTube or an Instagram page, I have always liked the idea of acrylic pour art. Where you literally pour the paint onto the canvas and you manipulate it,” she said as she points to one where she had manipulated it with a hairdryer.

She admits a lot of paint goes to waste from the pour but sometimes it blends to create a colour she likes and she ends up using it. Some of her other pieces are made using paint dipped in string or paint that has a balloon “splodged” into it.

On why she is supporting the charity SOS Perrera Los Barrios she said it was because they are in desperate need of funding as they rely on people to donate.

From all the work she has created and sold previously to her exhibition she has raised £5,500 for the charity and makes a donation of whatever she raised that month to them at the end of the month.

“They don’t turn away any dogs and if they are in bad condition they get them well at their cost,” she said.

“We foster for them as well. We have fostered 55 dogs for them and that is since December. The puppies don’t have a secure clean area and we have had some that have had pavo, in fact we had one die recently from pavo which is very upsetting.”

“They need the money and I enjoy doing this,” she added.

She supports the Gibraltar Alzheimer’s and Dementia Society someone she knew well.

“He was a very special man. He unfortunately had Alzheimer’s and he passed away so I wanted to give some of the money to the Society in his memory,” she said.

The exhibition is running until the end of the month, the opening hours are Monday - Friday 10am - 6pm and Saturday 10am- 2pm.

For more information visit the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/waterartstudio