Asia Pacific Screen Awards - 26 November 2009

I was lucky enough to get invited to the third annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) that was held on the Gold Coast last night – coverage can be seen at http://www.asiapacificscreenawards.com/  

The event brings 37 films from 16 countries together to compete for the Asia Pacific region’s highest honour in film.

The night was fantastic and Indira Naidoo and Peter Thompson did a wonderful job hosting the evening (and pronouncing nominees names). Even more exciting was that Australia won two awards - Warwick Thornton's indigenous love story Samson & Delilah  took the Best Feature award and the stop motion animation Mary and Max made by Harvie Krumpet Oscar-winner Adam Elliot, and produced by Melanie Coombs, was judged Asia Pacific's Best Animated Feature film. Other winners can be seen at http://www.asiapacificscreenawards.com/the_awards/winners_2009

After the awards we able to mix and mingle with the winners and it was lovely talking to the lovely AI  (one of the highest selling artist in Japan today) who performed a song from the APSA nominated film, Okuribito (Departures) and a hit song from her current album, Best A.I (which recently debuted at number one in Japan).

Art Competition

Well it's that time of year....locking in people to paint for some portrait competitions coming up early next year. This year has gone so quickly and I would have thought I would have already started the paintings by now but lucky for me I work better under pressure!!

So at this stage I have spoken to two people I want to paint... nothing is locked in yet...and I hope it works out that I can paint them both. To keep with my theme of recent years I am going to paint musicians (because a live without music cannot exist)  and for these competitions they need to be Australian...  As luck would have it ... the two people I wanted to paint were in Brisbane on Friday 13/11/09.

Vanessa Amorosi was doing a VIP invitation only for 97.3 and lucky Cate from work, her daughter works for 97.3 and was able to squeeze us in..yay!!! I had already contacted her management team - with them sending a response that they will be in contact... so it was good to actually introduce myself to her.  I am looking at painting Vanessa for the Doug Moran Art Prize  http://www.moranprizes.com.au/default.aspx?id=6  

Next was Kate Miller-Heidke... I was already going to her concert on Friday night but during the day she was doing a performance in the Queen Street Mall and then a meet and greet afterwards. A friend of mine took KMH's photos for her CD and promo stuff and I had sent an email to her to pass onto KMH's people but Kate hadn't seen it so I will send it to  her management team...so if Kate agrees (and time permits) I will be painting her for the Archibald Prize http://www.thearchibaldprize.com.au/finalists/archibald

So next step is trying to work out schedules and see if  Kate and Vanessa have time to sit for at least one sitting.  Both competitions are due in late January so there isn't much time to get things started. I do have a bit of time off over the Christmas break and will be able to take more time off if I need it so while it will be tight deadlines it can be done!

So I will keep you posted on how I go....

Have a wonderful weekend...x B

Hi there!

Welcome to my FIRST  blog.. while this blog is only short...it will be a place where I'll update you about my crazy world as an artist who is not quite cool enough to be a gypsy so works full time (at the moment) and paints/ draws in my spare time.

To view more artwork visit www.benitta.com

So stay tuned for some regular updates

x B