The way I seem to work best is when I am not meant to be doing what I’m up to. Not sure if this is just me or perfectly normal human behaviour. I’m not bothered either way, the useful thing about realising this (hopefully not too late) is I can understand what methods might workf for me.
If I get a few hours to ‘paint’ I don’t necessarily want / need to paint. I have to start with reading, reflecting and feeling connected with my subject. Feeling obliged to others has a great hold on me. I will often do these things others are waiting for above my own tasks. I need to mess with this a bit. Prioritise my own work more often.
Right – to the business of making. I followed my nose yesterday and started creating a piece to expain to myself what I’m doing. I’ve got a pile of my partly legible handwriting (in watered down grey acrylic) on watercolour paper, cut into strips and a 20x20cm 3D canvas – painted white on the underside. I’ve written ‘listen’ just once, fairly big – again in grey acrylic. The plan is to obscure it with the writing strips.
Another version of this I just had to do on card had ‘clarity’ in the middle as this is also what I’m trying to get at for myself. Somehow, by putting it into 3D form is helping me to distill what I mean by what I am exploring.
