I wasn’t planning to blog today, but my husband has gone out with (inadvertently) both sets of studio keys in his pocket, which means I am locked out of the studio until he returns… frustrating! It’s particularly maddening today because things have been so productive lately, painting-wise, and I really want to just get on with working (on oil painting, rather than the acrylic monochrome on paper that I feel I really ‘ought’ to be getting on with, but that’s another story…)
The new canvases are still not unwrapped, because I have been seeing all sorts of ways forward with various unfinished but much-worked-on canvases that have been sitting in the studio. I think that’s the most satisfying part of the painting process. It’s the point where you seize things and breathe – no, beat – new life into something that was verging on being stuck. Often it fails, but when it works it’s thrilling.
One thing that I’ve been turning to my advantage, to my surprise, is the slowly drying paint in my tin of Flake White. I had been feeling annoyed at the fact that the paint in the tin (as opposed to the tubes I normally use) was hardening and forming unusable clumps. (Which it is). But there’s a point in-between softness and clumpiness that’s really exciting to use. Yet again it all comes down to White… (see post number 1 of this blog for more thoughts on White).
