Standards and Scruples ????

I have been painting for over 13 years now, teaching it for 11 years...In that time I have met hundreds and hundreds of people who have come along to the workshops to learn how to paint ''My Way''.      In the past year or so , and more recently the past few weeks I have found that some ex-students who I had considered to be friends have been quite underhanded to me...and have  stolen some of my images to teach to people in their workshops that they have started running!  It has been quite blatant in some of the cases--even to the fact they had the paintings they had actually done in my class on their website advertising they were their own work and even claiming Copyright !   Talk about taking the piss.....!!!!!    .All of the paintings I teach in the workshops are logged with www.protectmywork.com and while I'm happy for students to go home and recreate the paintings and technique they have learnt with me, to give to friends , family and charities--whatever-- you should not make financial gain from my images.unless you have my permission .And I do give my permission in some cases--one lady Jackie has asked and has given me the credit for the images on her webite--but she has used them to make metal paintings---ccompletly unique!  I have worked hard coming up with ideas for workshops and its been very upsetting to be treated like this.  You cannot use one of my paintings like the one above and just change the cats to owls--and call it yours...adding a few leaves to the sunflowers doesn't work either...

Turning the canvas the other way around to landscape doesn't work either,,,

and changing the big poppies for little ones and vise versa does not wash !

All of these paintings I have shown on here have all been copied--plus others as well...and the sad thing is the artists concerned are quite capable artists in their own rights...and could quite easily come up with some of their own unique ideas...

You can't splatter some paint over a copy of my images and call it yours--

I was stunned to walk into a craft fair we were doing recently to find what looked like my stall.....mainly versions of birch trees, stormy poppies and summer days....and I came home to emails from some people who had also seen the stall and thought it was mine!! To say I was not happy is an understatement I can tell you..and I told her so at the craft fair..

To be fair she did ring me the next day and apologise and everything that had been copied was taken off her website etc ..but I really don't know how she thought she would get away with it--although she had changed her name from the one used when booking her workshops with me..She said she thought I would be proud of her--- and I would have been if she had got more of her own ideas on show instead of 3/4 of mine on her stall..  she had some lovely seascapes on her stall that were her own and I suggested to her she goes and does more of that style..

I have been teaching the Birches since 2006 -when I checked with my Protect My Work site,and Summer Day and Stormy Poppies even longer.

It would appear that my website has been looked at and my most popular subjects were stolen...    I think the artists concerned need to take a look at their standards and scruples--would you steal your friends husband?   Because in my eyes its just as low as that--and to be quite honest I have enough on my plate at the moment worrying about my son who is fighting cancer without having to worry about my work being used..