Get painting for hospice fund
(Gazette 2/8/2006)
by Pete Bennett

Artists across Dacorum are sharpening their pencils and mixing their paints ready to help support the Hospice of St Francis.

The hospice has organising a paintathon to help bring in funds for the new site, while also providing an opportunity for artists to display their works at the new hospice building.
Elvira MacCrimmon said: "The idea of the paintathon is to get local artists, or anyone who wants to paint, to do a painting in any medium and raise money for the hospice. All the paintings will then be displayed in the new hospice building."

Pupils at Lime Walk School in Hemel Hempstead got into the spirit of things after a visit from local artist George Sear (above), who is putting in an entry to the paintathon and also helped inspire the youngsters to produce works of their own.
Elvira said the students got involved in the project as part of their art week.
She said: "The art teacher at Lime Walk, "Sarah Honey, is a hospice volunteer and she saw an advert for the main paintathon. All the pupils produced paintings and raised more than £100."

Entrants in the paintathon must raise at least £50 through sponsorship and donations to put in an entry and that will include a painting board supplied by Berkhamsted Arts and Crafts.
Elvira added: "All the entries will be displayed in the Civic Centre in Berkhamsted on September 23 and judged by the Mayor of Dacorum. The top three will be transformed into notelets for the hospice."

When the new hospice is completed the paintings will be rotated on walls.
Liz Richards of the hospice said: "There are a lot of walls at the new hospice so I think it's brilliant that people will be able to see works by artists who raised money."
Elvira added: "We've been contacted by 43 artists interested in taking part and received our first completed painting last week. We are calling on anyone who would like to enter to get involved in this exciting and challenging project."

The closing date for the competition is September 18. Contact Elvira MacCrimmon on 01442 862884 for an application form.