I started a sketchbook four to five months ago with the aim of learning the painting process. My artwork as a digital photomontage artist was taking on a more painterly quality and the urge to work in a more hands on way beckoned. We had recently moved to a more rural location and entered a national lockdown. The time it seemed lent itself to looking at things in a different way.

I ended my last blog having moved from working on paper to small wooden panels. This blog is about the development of four wooden panels and having reached the point I was aiming for when I first began my project, which was to resolve four to six small paintings.

HOW MUCH TIME TO DEVOTE TO PAINTING

I have always believed that our artwork is determined by our situation. Two months ago I returned to my four day a week job teaching at secondary school. As you can imagine I stepped back into a very different environment. This included masks, social distancing, rules, one way systems, fragile children and a workload that only seemed to have grown. Therefore the time I get to devote to any sort of artwork in a week is relatively short. This has been strangely beneficial, in the sense that I work quickly on several paintings for a short amount of time. I bemoaned this until I realised that any longer and I started to lose my way. I overworked paintings, which until that point were going quite well. The lack of rules in painting and the uncertainty of where it was heading feels refreshing. I am enjoying not having to plan and think.

DEVELOPING IDEAS

In my last blog I was feeling that I needed to reference the landscape in a real way. I diligently visited Devil’s Dyke in the hope of getting some ‘real inspiration’. However, once in the landscape I found I wasn’t really moved by it in that way. Trying to replicate what I saw didn’t excite me in the same way as working spontaneously with just an idea of landscape. I feel I have made a leap in this respect.

Throughout this project have regularly photographed the different stages of my paintings. I am fascinated by how we develop ideas. I record this process, partly with my teachers head on and the need to understand logically how this thing works. The way in which I am working is intuitive and in the moment. Trying to go back and remember what I have done afterwards is impossible. By taking photographs I can view the points at which I loose the fluidity in the painting, or at which I make it worse or better. I can also look at the pictures once removed to try and discern what they need. I can see that even if I lose them, I have a chance of recovering them. If I am honest, I also half hoped that in doing this I would find some magical formula of how to create a painting. Not so far!

THE PAINTING PROCESS

I really enjoy the early stages of the painting, where I have resisted the urge to think. The only idea I have is of land and sky. I like how the colours form a palette or a direction, almost of their own accord. For me it is a lot easier to create a sense of freedom in the sky than the land. The transition between foreground and background is something I am finding quite challenging.

I loved the sky in this painting from very early on and knew I didn’t want to mess with it. I wish the foreground would resolve in such a free and spontaneous way.

For this panel I began on a ground that was already painted in a colour not in my colour palette. I didn’t want to waste the panel. Having a mid tone in the background was helpful and I quite enjoyed the inappropriateness of the colour, which looked more like it belonged in an ice cream shop. I enjoyed working with a dry brush and scraping back areas with a scalpel, or a palette knife.

I enjoyed the colour palette that grew from the fourth starting point. The mark making that I achieved early on in the painting had to my eye a lovely energy about it. I wanted to preserve various parts of the painting, but the The painting tightened up when I started to mask it with graphic, definite shapes. I have to admit quite a reckless side to my nature and I will often do things on impulse before I have thought them through. Taking things apart without any idea of how to put them back together is something I do often. It is this impulse that is governing my decisions in painting at the moment.

TEN THINGS I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT THE PAINTING PROCESS

1. Working with a limited colour palette gives a sense of freedom – In all of these panels I used the same three colours, plus black and white
2. I don’t have to work directly from observation. in fact it was getting in the way.
3. Colour, composition and creating layers are the things that excite me about painting.
4. There is a point in the painting where it tells me what to do rather than the other way round.
5. I appreciate having time in between revisiting each work
6. I know I am more prepared to take risks on a painting when I work for short periods of time on it.
7. Photographing the different stages of the work helps me learn about and review the process.
8. I have no ideas when I start a painting where it is going to end up – a bit like in my photomontages.
9. The very act of trying to complete something makes me tighten up. I would like to maintain a greater feeling of looseness at the end than I have currently got
10. If I just keep going I will make progress, even though it doesn’t always feel like it.

I feel some sort of accomplishment getting to this point. My painting is not accomplished and I have so much to learn. However, when I began this project I was scared of starting at the beginning again, scared of failing, of revealing how bad I was, and now I think I can live with that fear and look forward to discovering more.

Previous blogs detailing the progress of my painting can be found here