I love to paint from real life but it’s restricting. Very few people have the privilege or freedom to travel, especially at the moment. But we can invoke memories, harness imagination and go anywhere we please and make anything we please.
I love this quote from Georgia O’Keeffe …
Imagined landscapes are freeing to paint. You are architect and town planner. You can access memories of places you’ve been and envision places you’d like to go. You can create wherever you chose and that’s magic.
I can’t let a bad canvas go. I may put it to one side for a while but it always gets hauled out again, sometimes scrubbed over with gesso, sometimes parts obliterated and others left. Sometimes I pick out new shapes, block in negative space. Maybe add some collage or text. Eventually .. and this may take time … it works out and if it really, really doesn’t, I dismantle it, and cut out shapes to be used in future pieces. They can be used as collage. They can be used to make cards. Waste nothing. Materials are expensive and there’s something very satisfying about getting use out of every scrap.
We had to go to Wales this week to attend a funeral. Despite the reason for journey (and it’s a long journey), going to Wales is always an absolute joy.
West Wales is always verdant but this time, it was verdant and then some. So much and so many greens. An overflowing abundance of lushness.
Churches are mainly dark grey stone, many with turreted towers, some quite severe looking even in summer sunshine. Churchyards are full of chess piece shaped headstones, which I’ve only ever seen in that part of the country.
This week has been about just having fun with colours and textures. Hedgerows and gardens are beginning to explode with colour and I wanted to paint like I was in amongst the action. This week has also been short on studio time and that means no faffing, just do something, anything and enjoy it.
I used a mixture of fluid acrylic, soft body, inks, pencil (mainly Woody Stabilos), crayons and anything close to hand to make marks.
I’ve been dithering around and putting off launching this website for weeks. ‘Launching” is far too grand a word for something so simple but it’s better to have something out there, than nothing at all.
And so we plunge. A blog to muse about art, life and all the bits in between. It’s time to dive in. And while I’m throwing around swimming analogies, our local club pool is open again and I couldn’t be happier. The pool looks something like this ….
