The complimentary colours of blue, greens, lilacs and orange make up the most beautiful colour pallet and a wonderful mixing block to depict the landscapes of Yorkshire as it moves through the seasons.

Hockneys love of landscapes began in the 60s and has spanned his entire career but the one painting that stands heads above the rest is “A Closer Grand Canyon” a painting made up of 48 individual canvases showing the rich oranges and reds of the grand canyon – a subject my favourite photographer, Peter Lik also covered.

At 73 Hockney resides at his family home in Bridlington on the English coast. He still paints large canvases in his enormous studio but keeps his iPad with him like a sketchbook. He says, “What fascinates me is not just technology but the technology of picture-making. I spend more time painting of course, but I treat the iPad as a serious tool. The iPad is influencing the paintings now with its boldness and speed.”

The iPad collection is vast and detailed and Clever! Sometimes completing up to 2 ipaintings a day Hockney effortlessly applies his technique to the digital age creating a beautiful series of works with the touch of a stylus. Am not sure whetstone high street will have the same artistic possibilities as his local scenery but I could be inclined to give iPad art a go. So keep your eyes peeled for me in friary park with my faithful iPad.

Until then enjoy the exhibition- I certainty did.

A complete stranger connected with me in such a way that made me cry, made me appreciate life, gave me hope and encouraged me to take risks.

How? Why? Just because…

As your companion from Camden to Bank, I say,  Whoever you were, ‘Good luck with your kidney transplant and thank god there are people who do give their left kidney to a stranger.Keep your spirits up and thank you for connecting’.

To everyone else, if you see someone  struggling on the tube, offer your seat – you just never know where the journey will take you.

The photo of the magical sunset yesterday will remind me of that lovely lady who told me to carry on taking risks and look out for others. So selfless and appreciative of the tiny act of kindness I gave.

Keep giving

Thanks to @ASOS_Chloe for sharing this photo of the sunset last night. It is now my screen saver!

It turned out that an 11 year old boy with a brain tumour called Harry Moseley made that bracelet to raise awareness for his charity www.helpharryhelpothers.com which was part of Cancer Research. The charity launch was on the following Thursday and Brian asked if I would like to go to the Kensington Hotel and see Harry speak.

There was a shift in me there and then and I wanted to do something to help this little boy who was wise beyond his years. I was honoured to attend the launch.

Voted Britain’s Kindest Kid in 2009, Harry spoke about his fight with the dreaded cancer and how he wanted to make a difference to the world and find a cure for treating brain tumors in children.

I met his mum, Georgie, his PE teacher, his Head Teacher, Ben Shephard, Gary Liniker and all the cancer research team supporting him and was completely blown away by his entrepreneurial abilities, confidence and humor. The inevitable was happening to him but rather than let it take over his life he channeled his energy with the help of an amazing mum into putting something good back into the world.

His twitter following grew from 1000 to 80000 in 5 months. The England Football team supported him, Brian spoke of football clubs each having their club colours turned into bracelets and being sold through the club shop. There were replenishment issues in that Harry and his family were making all the bracelets and the demand was growing such that he needed more and more people to help him in his tree house. (Brian was hired then sacked!)

The charity launch then made way for the school launch where I was lucky enough to present a painting called ‘I See’ to Harry as a surprise along with two footballers Michael Johnson and Ian Taylor from Aston villa and Birmingham city football teams.

One of the most important days of my life was this day and the feeling I got from investing just a little time in providing someone with a painting, something that comes naturally and easily to me, was amazing.

A short while after I received the most special letter from harry saying thank you. I will treasure this letter and the many memories I have of Harry forever and a day.

I am one of the lucky ones, I met Harry. He did not know it but he has shaped my business, my outlook and future. And I am thankful to have known such a boy.

Let the light shine on for Harry.

www.helpharryhelpothers.com

www.twitter.com/harry_moseley

Ever ready and prepared I had a business card in hand and used my 7 seconds of interaction to inform him what I did. And he got it! In 7 seconds, he knows I paint brands and bring them to life through art. He liked it.

So, here is to Mr Cowell calling me to discuss a commission where I can bring his brand or brands to life through art. (ring, ring!)

Not to forget meeting Katie Piper, Rebecca Ferguson, Leona Lewis, Vernon Kay and Tess Daily… Me – Star Struck? Nah, they are just like us. All in all a Fab night.

The lovely people at Ebay and Santander get a special mention as they donated £15,000 and £10,000 respectively. And I also had the pleasure of meeting Katie Piper’s surgeon - Mr Mohammad Ali Jawad’s and learning of his extensive expertise in the fields of plastic and cosmetic surgery. He does a lot of charitable work and I hope to collaborate with him in the future.

One guy that I had a special connection with was Amit, who has tumours growing on his face and is 1 year into an economics and marketing degree, hoping to eventually work in the business world. Truly inspirational guy and one I would be proud to work with.

Thanks to the lovely people at Sister Snog and Nacera from Argan Oil UK for thinking of me and inviting me.

As this is a vector file it can be enlarged without loosing resolution which means you can have a visual of your brand forming the entire facade of a building if you wish.

With support from the likes of Ben Sheperd, Michael Johnson, Duncan Bannatyne and a whole list of other celebrities, the love for this boy is growing second by second.

He was the most followed #ff on twitter for the last 2 weeks running and is soldiering on to fight for a cure for cancers.

Please support him via www.helpharryhelpothers.co.uk

Appreciating art comes naturally to me, seeing Miro’s techniques and the work he has produced is an inspiration to me.

The combination of surrealism with bold vivid oranges, blues and greens make me want to depict anything and everything in linear forms with circles at the end! The ‘escape ladder’ so prominent in so many of his paintings struck a chord with me as it resembles the step from realty into imagination, which as I am seeing more and more, is the window to your future.

There were some typical pieces whereby Miro had somehow made one single line on a huge canvas look like childsplay but arty at the same time. Another quirky series of art was that in which he burnt the canvas as he wanted to paint with the ‘movement of fire’. Borderline ‘crazy meets creative’ but incredibly effective.

All in all, it was a great exhibition and one I am glad to have seen.

Miro at the Tate Modern is on until the 11th September

Upon arrival, with no delays and no signs of nerves within me at all, I took a deep breath then took to the stage.

The preparation paid off, as did all the lessons provided via Rachel Elnaugh through her workshop.

It was a great success and once the interaction got going I was answering questions and inspiring and empowering others to be their brand.

My main focus was describing the incredible power of energy and how your personal energy reflects of your brand and ultimately your business.

Identify your circles of passion, then see how you can turn it into a business

You are lucky if you know your purpose, not everyone does and it is hard to find. But as I learnt from Rachel, when two passions fuse they can make a viable business and give you the meaning of why you are here and how you can add value to the world.

In my case I love the buzz of marketing, what a brand is, it’s identity and function and I also love being creative through graphics, illustration and painting.

So my circles are marketing and art, and once I combined the two and found that I have found my purpose of – Bringing Brands to Life Through Art – my business opportunities grew and grew as did my passion and energy.

So, what are your circles? Have you got them covered? What is the area where you can blend one interest with another then focus on the overlap. That crossover is where the magic will happen.

Once you have that sorted, you will know your purpose. And when you know your purpose you can identify your value and the benefit it has to your customers.

Feel free to email any thoughts and comments.

There you have it, good luck.

It was an invaluable session and I know feel fully equipped to discuss anything and achieve a really positive outcome for both parties involved.

Simon Horton has been teaching negotiation skills for 10 years. He is a Visiting Lecturer at Imperial College and has taught hostage negotiators, Magic Circle law firms and senior purchasing officers at some of the largest companies in the world. He is also trustee of AID2, a not-for-profit that teaches negotiation to other charities.

Whilst looking at Simons website I came across this amazing diagram showing the route we all have to take in order to reach our target.

Thought you may like to see it too! It was designed by Eva Jiricne (www.ejal.com) an award winning architect. .

Will be posting Negotiation Tips soon… In the meantime – BE PREPARED!

His attitude and outlook is amazing and inspiring. And I felt compelled to do something for him to help raise money for www.helpharryhelpothers.com

So, seeing as I paint brands and bring them to life through art, I painted Harry’s Brand and had lots of fun with it too

At his campaign launch in his school I presented the painting and handed over all the copyright so he could print the artwork onto items such as lunch boxes, school stationary, mugs, t-shirts etc and generate income from the sales.

It was the most amazing day for me and has made me realise that ‘giving’ is amazing and worth more than money. I am a proud promoter of Harry and his bracelets and my marketing background came into use when I devised a lunch box concept that contained enough beads to make 25 bracelets allowing you to help harry replenish his stock or help harry raise money. This is something that could go global!

To date, Harry has raised nearly £500,000. If you would like to support Harry in anyway, let me know! In the meantime, here is a pic from the launch. I was there with some footballers and also the Harry Potter Weasley Brother twins (sshh don’t tell anyone but I did not know who they were!)