This newsletter provides updates on Tony Nero's art activities and local art events in Peterborough, UK. It describes Tony's involvement in various art exhibitions and workshops, including juried shows, teaching an abstract painting workshop, and creating cover art for a musician. It also announces an upcoming art festival and profiles a street artist creating sand sculptures. In addition to news, it shares photos of Tony's recent paintings and previews new works he is creating in 2014.

1. The really random newsletter all about my art
www.tonynerobrushworks.com April 2014 issue 11
l Block Collective to Jazz
up underpass
l South Holland Open Arts
l New York raffle winner
l Getting abstract with
Oundle art group
Tony Nero’s Art NEWS
As artists
we aspire
to do great
things!

2. Welcome
Welcome to issue 11 of my news-
letter. When I started the first one I
had no idea it would grow like this
and recently a friend refered to it
as a magazine. Nice words are
always encouraging.
Time is moving so fast that I can’t
believe i’m now working on issue
11 of this newsletter. Speaking of
time, well changing times at the
monent for me. I’ve opted out of
doing Open Studios this year but
busy in the background helping out
with arrangemants and planning.
I didn’t realise what i were letting
myself in for when I joined the
committee. Also busy producing
lots of new work.
This issue’s front cover features
my painting of Jonathan Clynch
‘The Wood Carver’. This painting
was entered into the Mall gallery’s
portrait competition but sadly didn’t
make it on the walls. I just know
that one day they will give in and
let me hang one up.
Block Collective set to
jazz up city underpass
For some time now local artists have
been fighting the negativity that
there’s no art scene in the city. So
it’s joyful to see that Blok Collective
have been given the go ahead to
jazz up the city’s central underpass
at Cowgate. After beating national
competition with their bid, the local
art collective have been busy draft-
ing ideas to transform the underpass
with a burst of creative energy.
The final pieces of works which are
expeted to be completed in May, will
feature a collarge of creative
concepts and ideas from stories of
the local area.
Project Leader, Stuart Payn said
“The Peterborough art scene is thriv-
ing with energy and passion; this is a
chance to share this passion with a
fresh & bold creative legacy for both
locals and visitors to our city.”
Jason Duckmanton, Luke Payn,
Amanda Rigby, Stuart Payn, Keely Mills,
Jay Gearing, Lee Mason (not pictured).
Photo Credit: Simon Belham

3. South Holland Open Arts exhibition
Ever since my first showing at the
South Holland Arts Centre in 2006,
I always enjoy revisiting this beauti-
ful space each year for their annual
open studio art exhibitions. This year
it was great to have my pastel draw-
ing ‘Winter over the Fens’ accepted
for display. I actually thought that the
other painting which I had submitted
would have been the one chosen. It
just shows how unpridictable art can
really be... you just never know.
Fellow artist Mary Kemp had two of
her new pieces accepted. Both
pieces depticting her lovely garden.
We went to the exhibition together
and had a super evening prevewing
all the other beautiful pieces of art.
The first picture below shows a fly
made up enterly of silver spoons
and the other shows the galaxy
made from solid steel. Nicola Smith
sent me the above picture of herself
standing by my drawing, taken on
her visit to the exhibition. Such a
lovely surprise. It’s always great get-
ting that kind of support from friends
and fans alike.

4. Raffle winner in
New York scoops a
Tony Nero original
Heart felt congratulations to Raffle
winner Rev. Dr. Glyger Beach, who
was over the moon with his prize.
My pastel drawing of the flour mill in
St Vincent was won by Rev. Beach,
but not before having quite an
adventure getting to New York. For
various reasons, missing two raffles
and surviving near damage. The
drawing was donated to New York
charity ‘Vincy Cares’ to help raise
funds at their annual charity ball for
the people of St Vincent & the
Grenadines.
Honored by Albany, NY’s Senator
Parker to the 2011 Veteran’s Hall of
Fame, Rev. Beach was very happy
to have won the drawing. It’s always
nice as an artist to know that your
work is going to a good home.
Thanks to Marcia Kirton-Ceaser for
the super cool pic.
My most recent painting, of which
I don’t even have a title for as yet.
Done in the same style as Emma’s
Kiss, mixing a bit of abstract with a
bit of realism and just only using a
basic three colours to create this
dynamic effect. White, Umber and
silver, well, and a crazy hand to
produce this piece of work.
I love working like this, as you can
really let yourself go and work
quite freely. The picture also has
two lives, it looks different in the
night as the silver punches out.
Photographer Melanie Evans said
‘Bloody wow, I love it’, and Yve
Scott said ‘That’s right out there
Tony, I love it’. Some super cool
comments, always encouraging.
Most recent painting

5. Happy ending at
Charity Ball
Tony’s Shout Out!
My shout out in this issue goes
out to Shaky Art, a guy who at a
point in his life had a most terrible
accident. The accident damaged
his brain and has left him shaking
constantly. This makes it difficult
for him to do ordinary things that
most of us in general find easy and
take for granted.
With his love for art, he found a
way of holding a paint brush in his
mouth which enables him to paint
and create works of art. Listening
to him one day as we spoke at
one of my exhibitions, I can only
admire anyone who tries so hard
regardless of their daily difficulties.
Keep doing what
you’re doing
Shaky, with
passion and
determination
comes improve-
ment and
fullment.
As I’ve said before, it’s always
great to know that your work is
going to a good home. This paint-
ing I did recently, entitled ‘Hang
on dude, i’ve got your back’, surly
went to a happy home.
The painting was donated to be
auctioned at Harley’s Charity Ball
and was won by Cllr Darren Fower,
who won the bid against Dave
Heyhoe. When Cllr Fower found
out Dave had personal reasons for
wanting the painting, he handed it
to an estatic Dave who was over-
joyed for such a generous gift. The
painting depicted a soilder and
his dog, Liam and theo, friends of
Dave’s who died just hours apart. I
caught up with Cllr Fower later on,
who said ‘There was was a true
hero in the room, so I had to do it’.
Cllr Fower posing with one of my other
paintings

6. Getting abstract with the Oundle art group
In March I was invited by artist and
jeweller Jane Sanders to run a work-
shop with the Oundle Art Group and
what an eventful day it was.
With no current transportation of my
own I decided to head out to the little
village of Tansor, which is just out-
side of Oundle, by bus. I didn’t know
where I were going so I did the best
thing and asked the driver to give
me a shout when we got there. After
about half an hour the bus driver
shouted ‘this is your stop’. Yeah

7. right! To my surprise he dropped me
off at the wrong stop, so I ended up
walking about 3 miles to get to
Tansor Village Hall, where the art
group usually have their weekly
meet up.
After a welcomed cuppa and meet-
ing the lovely group we got started
on painting an abstract rose. I was
chuffed to see that quite a number of
the group had looked on my website
to see what I were going to give
them to do. We started by laying a
textured background using acrylic
pain.There were a roar of laughter
as I squeezed out the paint from the
tube directly on to the canvas,
instead of using a brush. The idea
was to have a bit of fun with the me-
terials so that the work can be free
and loose.
Painting was almost a disaster, as I
had asked the group to use way too
much paint on the initial background,
so the paint was taking too long to
dry. With such a lovely bunch of
people who were throughly enjoying
the session, and the idea of working
in a different way, they just carried
on being creative. The end result I
believe, was that everyone enjoyed
themselves, learnt something and
created a piece of work at the end of
the session.

8. In the picture!
If you’re ever in Peterborough City,
wether just chilling out or visiting
from out of town, here’s a nice little
arty treat. Most Saturdays you can
find an artist doing some form of
live art at Art in the Heart, our local
gallery and art shop. So refreshing
to see artists working and sharing
their ideas and practice with the
public. I recently dropped in on
Stacey-Ann Cole’s session and
made some trouble as usual. She
tried her hardest to explain her
watercolour techniques but i was
trying to nick her custard creams.
In October BBC Radio Cambs
invited me on air to do a chit chat
on the Celebrating Diversity event
we were putting on. I managed to
get the great Don Sanders out of
his bed early to come down to the
Square and do a live piece for the
radio. It was surly a good way to
start the day and nice when Kate
came up and said, ‘Oh, I just heard
you on the radio and there you
are’. But the best one was David
Smith coming to speak to me in
the middle of my interview and
saying to Johnny Dee, ‘excuse us
for a minute’, aww, I guess you
can’t beat live.
Saturdays it’s live
at Art in the Heart
A different artist
most Saturdays
producing live art
Hanging with Don Saunders & DJ Johnny Dee
Street artist Alan with his super
cool sand sculpture. He scrapes all
the sand up at the end of the day!

9. Some really new stuff for 2014
I’m currently on a mission to produce a
batch of new works this year and here are
six of my latest pieces. These are a few of
my contempoary urban style pieces, which
are heading to ‘Art in the Heart’ gallery,
and a couple of cool teddybears chucked
in which will be heading to ‘Bear With Me’,
teddybear shop.
One thing for sure, the new pieces will be
as diverse as as ever, with more added to
the urban collection, a watercolour collec-
tion and a body of work for a ‘Darker than
Blue’ exhibition, as well as some new
pieces for an exhibition at North St Bar.

10. Living Data in city Time for some cover art
It was really nice to catch the
‘Living Data’ exhibition, by artist
Michael Takeo Magruder at the
Museum. But even more pleasing,
was to be able to go along to the
artist talk and hearing about the
concepts and ideas behind the
pieces of work.
To sum it all up, Michael and his
team of experts builds their own
computers to capture data. That
data is then transformed into
live art, so as the data changes,
so does the work. For example
there’s a piece of work which was
created from data captured from
the Dow Jones and another from
data captured from images of flow-
ers on the internet. So in essence,
with my daily Twitter tweets I have
helped to create the piece made
from data captured from Twitter.
How cool is that!
When Toyin Adekale shouted me
from across the water, over there
in Seattle and asked me to work
on the cover for her new track, I
said #let’sdoit.
Toyin had a vision of what she
wanted the cover to look like and
she liked the style of some of my
recent work to use as a format to
compliment the final artwork. I was
even sent a copy of the track to
listen to to get some inspiration. I
have to say it’s a cool and mellow
track that grew on me more and
more each day I worked on it. It
took some doing to get the image
right. First I wasn’t sure about it,
then I had done too much on the
smaller face, but finally by taking
out some of the details it was just
right.
I’m pleased to say that Toyin liked
the final artwork and the single is
now available on iTunes.
The Storm is Over
Sunshine’s Here
Toyin Adekale

11. www.paos.org.uk
28 & 29 June
5 & 6 July
12 & 13 July
Inspirational art in homes
and studios throughout
the city of Peterborough
and surrounding villages
PETERBOROUGH
ARTISTS’OPEN
STUDIOS 2014
Art Exhibition
Part of Peterborough Artists Open Studios
Visit PAOS website for more information and other artists: www.paos.org.uk
Embe Restaurant
2 Burghley Road, Peterborough PE1 2 QB
Opening times: All 3 weekends 12 - 5 pm
Including live art

12. Photo of the day What’s on
This issue’s picture of the day is
taken from the Black History Month
event entitled ‘Celebrating Diversity
in Peterborough’, which was held in
October last year.
Yours truly mixing it up with honored
guests, the Mayor Cllr June Stokes
and the delightful, Cllr Julia David-
son. It’s always a pleasure to be in
your company Cllr Davidson and
thank you for all your support.
This picture was taken at the town
hall recption which was followed by
a series of exciting performances
in Cathedral Square. I’m pleased to
say that Saturday 4th October 2014
have already been set as the date
for this year’s event, again at the
town hall and in the square.
Photo by Shaun Pitchers courtesy of
Pitchers Photography
l Live art Saturday:
Art in the Heart 47 Bridge Street,
Peterborough, PE1 1HA.
A different artist each Saturday
www.artintheheart.co.uk
l London Overspill -
James Smith. City Gallery,
Peterborough Museum, PE1 1LF.
3rd May-6th July
l River Lane - a play about
Peterborough, performed by the
people of Peterborough. 8-18th
May 2014 at Unit 23, Lower Floor
Rotunda, Serpentine Green
Shopping Centre.
www.easternangles.co.uk
l Summer Exhibition - Part of
Peterborough Artists Open Studio
(PAOS) 28 & 29 June 5 & 6, 12 &
13 July. All 3 weekends at Embe, 2
Burghley Rd, PE1 2QB.
Featured artists: Stacey-Ann Cole,
Mahemuda Arsalani & Josephine
Kelly-Gobuiwang
l Peterborough Artists Open
Studio (PAOS) 28 & 29 June. 5
& 6, 12 & 13 July 2014. For more
information visit: www.paos.org.uk
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