This piece from Abdoulaye Konaté was one of the few textile pieces from the 2017 show but it was in pride of place on the left as you came in. I liked the richness of the colours but for a cool £38,000, I don’t think it will be adorning my living room any time soon!

This was one of my favourite pieces from the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2017, which actually quite surprised me as I’m a colour lover down to my core. There was something quite brooding and forbidding about this painting by Mick Rooney but the skill involved was just immense.

I’m generally drawn to quite naive art when I pick a piece so this one is straight up my alley. When I first looked around the exhibition, I didn’t look at any of the stories behind the pieces so it was a real guessing game trying to work out what the names in the tree meant. I still don’t know what they mean but I’ll ask my mum to find out when she visits at the weekend.

It’s hard to get a real idea of the scale of the Summer Exhibition without visiting. The paintings I am featuring are but the tip of the iceberg of work as you can see from this photo! Here you can get a better idea of the scale.

There are so many paintings jam packed into the exhibition that sometimes it’s hard to know where to look!

It wouldn’t the Summer Exhibition without some truly weird art so here it goes… anyone have a clue what’s going on here?

I suspect this piece is by the same artist as the previous tree piece I featured but I was drawn to it initially because it’s just so simple but beautiful.

This painting was also by Mick Rooney (like the painting from the first room with yellow walls). There’s something so emotive about the scene and the colour pallette is just perfection.

I really love this painting of a full moon – it’s ethereal and beautiful. It has a really unusual scale and perspective to it.

One of the rooms in the show was dedicated entirely to the beauty of architectural plans. This was Christian’s favourite part of the exhibition but was a little masculine for my taste. I liked the geometic shapes of this particular piece though.

There weren’t an awful lot of pieces of art with fabric used in them but this mixed media piece by Christine Scoby-Smith was one of them.

I drive a mini so there was something about this painting by Gethin Evans that resonated with me. It’s one of the pieces that I can imagine hanging in my home 🙂

I was on the lookout for any art which could be seen to cross over with craft and this fitted the bill. These needle pointed trees must have taken forever to make! Stella Knight did us crafters proud.

I’m a huge fan of the piece in the centre of this photo as it reminds me a lot of Matisse’s cut outs. The colours remind me of the Caribbean.

I loved the way that the pieces were curated and walls were painted different colours to make the paintings pop.

I’m drawn to bold colours like a moth to a flame so these four paintings immediately drew my eye from across the room. I think my favourite is the bottom right piece.

The Summer Exhibition 2017 has its fair share of statues as well as conventional art. I liked this statue of stacked spheres but really wanted to touch it.

These two coffee pots were exactly the same before one was flattened. It’s a bit quirky to have them floating but certainly drew the eye.

I have no idea what this particular sculpture is but it makes me think of coral in the sea (which evokes good memories).

These two pieces were particularly popular as you can see by the huge number of red “sold” stickers at the bottom of them both.

I absolutely adore Gillian Ayres’ bright paintings. She had some exceptional pieces in last year’s exhibition and I liked these ones too.

The sky in this painting is one of my favourite colours but the scene is bit remote and eery for my taste.

One of the most striking pieces I encountered was this painting which reminds me of an alien. I love how it contrasts against the terracotta wall behind.

I love the pattern on the body of this statue by Yinka Shonibare but I’m not convinced by the globe head. Better not knock it over for £162,000!

This piece from the Summer Exhibition 2017 was also by Abdoulaye Konaté.

I stared at this crochet art for an age just trying to get my head around how much work must have gone into making it. The vibrant colours remind of India and Bollywood. Zak Ové is the textile artist who made it.

I’m not going to pretend that I understand what is going on in this painting but I still really like it. The fish look happy and it looks great agains the orange backdrop.

Art is a big player in the world of politics and Trump is obviously the man of the hour.

I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be to organise all the wonderful paintings in the show.

Bizarre but cool sculpture…

An Amy Winehouse model made entirely out of sequins and beads by Sarah Gwyer… what’s not to like!

This artwork fromJulian Schnabel at the Summer Exhibition 2017 was made out of broken plates and oil. The texture was just amazing.

And finally the last photo I took at the exhibition was this gorgeous blue masterpiece. I found it energising and the more I looked at it, the more I saw. Lovely, just lovely.