I have enrolled in classes and workshops with many respected and talented artists in my state for many years but eventually found this limiting. I don’t want to paint like anyone else, I want to have ‘me’ show through in my work. About 3 years ago I went to a series of classes on abstraction and it was a turning point for me. It synced with my love of experimenting with media and love of learning and as a result I have become a very passionate and compulsive painter.
I receive the blogs/newsletters from a number of inspiring artists and digital technology has expanded my horizons enormously. This week I read some words from a conversation between Nicholas Whilton and fellow artist Nadine Renazile.
“Small paintings need to feel powerful and large paintings need to feel intimate. “
Every so often I have insights (light bulb moments) when something comes together. In recent times I have been painting small studies or maquettes with the thought that they might work as studies for larger painting. Some of them were fairly subtle but maybe they will work better as big paintings rather than the more bold, dramatic ones??? So I am now thinking about how this might apply to my work now. The three images below are crops of small parts of larger paintings completed recently.
This week’s exercises
The joy of singing
Melancholy
The focus this week in the Find Your Joy course was to paint a feeling. This was a challenge; to consider a feeling as opposed to an emotion. Then were you painting what it might look like or how it felt to apply the paint while you were feeling the feeling. We did some small black and white studies then I did two larger 50 x 50 cm paintings. Felt the need to work bigger for this. I chose the feeling of my memory of singing with gusto; pure joy really. At the other end of the spectrum; melancholy. The process of painting and how you feel about it is more important that the finished product at this stage of the course. They are shown above and I think these could both be taken further to finished paintings.
Painting by Rebecca Crowell
The work above is by an artist I admire, Rebecca Crowell. Rebecca is an expert and teacher of painting in oil and wax, a medium I now mostly use. There are dozens of layers of paint applied and excavated or scraped back to produce and expose complex surfaces.
I have started two larger paintings this week and will show you in August. That’s next week!!
