Buggy

Buggy
Buggy

It’s been rather quiet round here, I know.  I’m busy in my final year of a BA in Visual Art, and also doing some arts administration work for a gallery and a studio group. 

I’m working through some artistic dilemmas right now.  As part of my degree, we look at professional development, which forces us to think about what we are going to do with our art.  Are we going to exhibit it?  If so, where?  Do we want to sell it?  To whom?  All of these questions have a nasty habit of getting right in the way of my creative process.  I sit down in my studio and get an idea for a piece of work.  Then a nasty little voice pipes up ‘ yeah, but who’ll be interested in that?  who will buy it? ‘  This is not helpful.  I think the only way to make authentic artwork is to shut all that out, and make what you truly want to make.  Then you can face the work of trying to find a market for it. 

Another dilemma is knowing how other people will view your work.  What do they see?  With my work, I try to literally ‘say what I see’ in an attempt to second-guess what a viewer will see in the work.   Despite these attempts, though, I’m nearly always surprised by other people’s reactions to my work.

Toddler

I want to walk
Toddler

 Acrylic on paper 12″ x 16″

I am still making work, and am excited by this series of bright paintings.  One of the things I am curious about is the way that the type of paint I use changes the way I paint.  When I use acrylic, my style is more spontenous, sketchier and brighter.  When I use oil, I am more careful, more detailed and more sombre.
I can also be more playful with acrylic, for example in this I have used natural sponge to create the effect of splashes of floral colour and foliage.  In ‘Nets’ below, I used a textured medium for the beach.  It’s good to be playing again.

Nets

'Nets' Acrylic on paper

'Nets' Acrylic on paper

Acrylic on paper.  I enjoyed using a textured medium for the sand, something that I can’t do with oils.  I find I do quite different paintings with acrylics and oils.  To a large extent, the medium dictates the formal qualities of the picture.

New Painting – Bathtime

Bathtime baby painting

Bathtime baby painting

Oil on canvas, 2′ x 2’6″

It’s quiet around here, as I am busily preparing for a number of shows – of which more later.  I recently commented on Ronell’s website about the difficulty of weighing up how much you fiddle with or ‘fix’ a painting, and how much you leave the initial marks.  This is one of those where I’ve decided to leave it alone.

Dad’s Hat painting

Child wearing hat and holding mirror
Child wearing hat and holding mirror

Oil on canvas 2′ x 2’6″

I felt it was time for a bit more colour around here.  This was completed in January, soon after I moved into my new studio space.  I’ve tried photographing it indoors with a daylight bulb, but I’m still not happy with the results.  Clearly I’m going to have to wait until we get some reliably dry and bright weather, and drag the whole lot outdoors to photograph them. 
I’ve even tried searching on the net for a local professional art photographer, but failed miserably.  Just goes to show that there are opportunities for business out there if you can design and optimise your website effectively to let your target market find you!

Bathtime

Bath
Bath

Sepia watercolour on fabriano paper.  I was inspired by the watercolour drawings of Marlene Dumas to have a go at drawing with a very loose watercolour wash.  I invested in a decent size watercolour brush, which cost what seemed like a ridiculous amount of money.   But it is superb to use.  It holds a lot of water, but also goes down to a tiny point at the end so that you can actually make very fine marks with it if you need to.  I drew directly with the paint, without doing any pencil drawing first and I do enjoy this spontaneous way of working.  You get what you get, basically, and that can be quite interesting.