Battles in a bedroom studio.
My search for a comfortable way to paint in my small Italian bedroom has had me sprawled across the floor, utilising hairbrushes and playing cards as make shift easels and even dismantling my desk and turning it upside down. My latest venture has involved a liberated advertising board (Klorane Gel Douche – five new scents!) from the Farmacia down the street (probably my most successful idea).
Knowing I’m beginning to push my luck if I want my paintings to dry in time before I leave I set yesterday aside to really get down and messy with the painting one last time here in Firenze.
And I think I had a bit of a break through. I learnt how to reuse turps (let it settle, pour of the clear liquid, I guess really I’d always known this, I watched my friends do it in studio last year but somehow it took this long to apply this method myself). I have begun to appreciate different brushes for different marks, which again seems so straight forward but I’d just been using which ever brush had the right colour on it, or one close to the right colour. I also learnt how to clean brushes, swirl them in brush cleaner. Again a big ‘well duh’ but strangely before I’d just been giving them a wipe if I wanted a big change in colour, or just letting the paint sit on them and grow hard, try to soften it up with some fresh paint if I wanted to use that brush again.
I’m aware that I’m coming across like a bit of a div. Perhaps I could of made ‘better’ paintings from the start if I’d read a manual – but where’s the fun in that?
The more I want from my painting, the more I’m pushing myself to get it.
