New Beginnings...
I also really enjoyed letting loose with drawing and using dry media a lot more in my paintings when I was working on the large sized paintings. This added a playful looseness which I really liked and prevented me working in a straight-line towards finishing when after each painting session I would draw and scribble over the painting. Coming back into it the next day I would cover a lot of the drawing over but the little remnants that peeped through were really fun suggesting a naivety which I liked.
Is there ‘Precious’ in your Studio?
Finally, the insistent call of the outside world drags us away and we close the studio door on that tangled grid-locked mess of paint, hope, and self-belief. As we square up to the dishwasher and the dusting that secret smile is now a nagging sense of dread. Am I good enough? Why can’t I figure this out? I’ve killed my precious ….
Learning to make Art without Fear
My Why - Why do I paint and Why do I teach?
When I was growing up there was no such thing as a ‘why’. Well, we didn’t know we all had one or at least there was no drive to examine our motives and find out. I remember doing quite a lot of motive examination directed by the nuns – but I always fell short and found myself counting down to the next confessional to cleanse my soul.
To Change or Not To Change Your Painting?
Tips to Title Your Painting
Now it’s time to carefully sign my name in the bottom right corner, lay down an isolation coat, a couple of coats of varnish and ….. drumroll please, GIVE IT A TITLE. The signing and finishing coats are simple, consider them done! But the title – ugh. My brain slumps in my head, solitary dying sparks fizzle – I’ve got nothing. Not a clue or even a microscopic gem of an idea. NOTHING!!
Stop trying to finish your paintings?
Be Battle-Ready with your Painting Process
How A Self-Doubter Became A BELIEVER
10 Tips for Painting BIG
Recently I have started 4 new paintings. These babies are BIG!! Well, they’re the biggest paintings I‘ve ever done. Initially I was a little nervous about starting them as this was foreign territory. I tried not to dwell on the volume of expensive paint I was going to consume, so to quell that nagging fear I ordered another bucket of gesso. That would get me started. I bought myself a couple of wider bigger brushes and I bought a squeegee so I could move the paint around the canvas quickly with one swoop. I was concerned with economy & efficiency you see.
Criticism and Creativity – Can they Co-exist?
When I was 11 it was my legs, in my teens it was my freckles, my boobs – or lack of, my teeth, certain aspects of my parents, our religion and the family car. In my 20’s still the boob thing, lack of career direction and my inability to hook a decent man. My 30’s saw the concern about the man intensify.. In my 40’s it was a general lack of organisation, uncontrol of my two young children – (yes, I managed to find myself a man.) My 50’s has been all about my internal thermometer control and sleep – both far too erratic. What has all this got to do with Abstract Painting?
Instagram for Art - Real or just another reel?
As an Artist, social media is like a Gallery in the sky– I can put up a post and show my work to thousands of people at the touch of a digit on a little blue tick. But that Gallery has a dark side which really gets on my goat – as it were. It’s like a voracious monster that has to be fed. The “social-queen” at school that everybody has to be on good terms with. It’s some sort of 21st Century measure of your popularity and ‘coolness’. I was always a fringe-dweller at school which is probably why the INSTA-Queen rankles me.
Finding Your Style
You don’t have to know what your style is when you embark on your artists journey. When you are further down the path, you can look back and you will see the clues. Colours, marks, techniques you have favoured. Combinations of shapes and preferences for compositional arrangements that seem to keep popping up in your work.
Unfinished Paintings
This last week I’ve been creating content for my new course FIX & FINISH. In this course I will equip my students with a process so they can expect to finish all their paintings and be happy with them. They will start a painting knowing that they will be able to navigate to the end and solve any problem they encounter on the way. In the back of my mind I can hear the doubters saying “Wow, that’s a tall order. Every painting?” Yes, EVERY PAINTING!!
The Top Tool in my Paintbox
Painting is My Teacher
Some paintings have given me learning that has freed me up completely, adjusted my thinking and changed the narrative that plays in my head. One in particular I will always be grateful for as it gave me an anchor that ever since has kept me secure and absolutely embedded in the knowledge that whatever I do in a painting it will all be for the good.
Expert Mistakes
5 Top Tips to Making Better Art
Selling: the elusive WHITE WALLS
I will happily sell my work online to anyone who wants to buy, and I will happily ship my paintings off to galleries if they want to sell my work. I’ll even book another Art Fair next year. But I’m not going to do mental gymnastics trying to come up with new venues and ways of getting my work on other people’s walls in front of other people’s eyes. I don’t really care enough.