Paint and the Self

I’m the ‘Visiting Artist’ this week at a girls’ school in Gloucestershire, partly working with some of the pupils, and partly working alone on a piece on paper, 7 metres long. The pupils are very lucky, because they have had real animals to work from: various dogs, a barn owl, two tarantulas, and a tortoise. The girls are coming up with some great work, and they’re loving the experience. As far as my own piece went, I was very anxious for the first couple of days that it wasn’t working, and was dull and predictable – but eventually exasperation took over and once I’d made a few drastic changes (including obliterating a figure that I’d spent hours sweating over) and fought with it a lot, it began to turn around. I ended up with landscape in it too – unheard-of for me. I feel like the week has allowed my practice to move on a bit, as I’d hoped it might but had feared it wouldn’t.