Full days in the studio – it's very physical working at this scale. The paintings are only 5ft x 5ft (they look so small on the blog photos) but that means that with my arms outstretched I can only just reach the edges with my fingertips. Working up close my whole field of vision is filled by with the surface. I'm climbing up on steps and stools to reach top edges, crouching to reach lower areas, moving in close, stepping back, shifting from one piece to another. Swift broad brush strokes, detailed slow movements. Updating the surface; fragmenting, unifying.
Three main things in mind as I paint, the order changing as I work:
Distilling elements from the visual residue of things seen on research visit.
The changing qualities of light in the gallery space, how light this affects the space, will affect the appearance of the paintings and therefore the experience of visitors.
The correlation I see between the physical processes of painting and how a place develops and how we build our internal pictures of places.
As I cycled to the studio this morning I wondered why I haven't updated this blog as often as I'd hoped to and how I could change that. As I paint, different streams of thought flow from conscious to subconscious. Sometimes as thoughts surface I think I'll record them later, then just carry on painting. At the end of the day, if I get around to writing, the thought processes are different; I struggle to recall the essence of those thoughts. I think the answer is to get into the practice of jotting things down as they occur so I can type them up later. Hopefully these ‘blog-it notes' will help transfer thoughts from my creative process more directly into the blog.
