Restarted

After a couple of weeks of feeling a bit Meh about my work, the weather and not doing much, I feel recharged again now.
I had 5 days of Spanish sun – visiting the amazing colours and architecture of Seville .

I loved the Moroccan feel, the peacefulness of the gardens and of course, the blue skies.

With so much stimulation, the trip made me want to start to introduce colour again to my work.
I’d been working with white paint so much lately as a kind of revolt against the busyness of my installations . It had a calming effect and I was able to get a feel of the paint without the distraction of colour and patterns.

Back to reality now though.

I can’t start on any work as my studio / spare room/ dumping ground is being used for an overnight stay tonight, so I have to pack away all of my paints etc and have a sort out / clean . Sigh.

Also, going through my emails when I got back, I found one from the open studio tour that I’ll be part of in June. My statement was too short.
One thing I hate, is long, pretentious statements that no one ever reads. I’d said to a friend a few weeks ago that I just wanted to say that I liked to paint. I liked the feel and texture of it. I had written a bit more than that, but it wasn’t enough and I reluctantly had to add a few more sentences .

It’s all nonsense isn’t it.

Last week I had a meeting with two other artists I’d worked with before, about having an exhibition together .
One of them has a studio in Liverpool that has its own gallery space. As it’s also connected to a bar and eating place, it’s a good place to show work as there’s always people around.
One of the suggestions we discussed – having bounced off ideas about the title which would tie our styles of work together , was to make BIG work.
Sounds good doesn’t it, but bearing in mind that I don’t have a studio space, the idea of working large is quite challenging .
I did actually have a couple of old canvases in my loft, that I decided to dig out and rework to see if I could do something with them, which was useful .

I managed to prime them in the garden one day when it was dry and not bitterly cold, so that went ok.
The next bit wasn’t so easy . They were too big for the kitchen table or any others surfaces I’d been using up to now, so the only option was to cover my bed in a plastic sheet and work sprawled across it.  Although that worked sort of OK, standing back to see what they looked like was near impossible. It was yet again a case of taking them into the garden to be able to look at how they were going, from a reasonable distance.
I’m not 100% sure. I’m out of my comfort zone in so many levels . As well as size, I’ve introduced more colour , which although I’ve worked with before, I suddenly feel less confident with now .
We’re aiming for an opening date end of April for the exhibition, so given that I’ve already got a body of work set aside, there’s no urgency to finish these two pieces if I’m not happy with them. I’ll keep going though as it’s always good to stretch yourself .
In other news, my application for the open studio has been sent off and I’ve ordered ( and received) the first lot of cards I’ve had printed. I’m quite pleased with them.
… and in a completely different note, I’ve got tickets for the Graham Crowley ( John Moores prize winner) talk next week.
Looking forward to that !

It’s been a rubbish week… well, it probably hasn’t, but just one thing overshadowed everything else and I felt like packing it all in.
I got the reject email from an open exhibition I’d entered.
It was particularly depressing because I wanted it to be the start of showing this new body of work I had.
I had worked so hard on this particular piece. I worked on it constantly and checked it in different lighting positions, adding , changing until I was completely happy with it.
I honestly felt confident about showing it.
Picking it up yesterday, with all of the other jaded entrants, I skulked home leaving it in a bag til much later when I had the guts to take a long hard look at it.
Should I have painted it differently? Added more colour? Less colour ? …  I went through all of the options but I couldn’t find what I could change.
They just didn’t like it . End of.

I seem to be just wading through things at the moment, unable to shift a cold which has left me with a fuzzy head and aching body. When is it going to go away ??

Its been quite a busy 10 days or so, since I last posted so I wanted to put it down on here so I can keep some sort of diary.

The postcard exhibition I’m in at Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield has been on since 10 January,  which is good that some of my work is out there.  They’re very good on social media too for people who can’t get to see the exhibition.

I have been painting quite a bit – every day in fact, which is a achievement for me! Though, I’ve also had a lot of Admin to do, which is a pain in the backside..

Liverpool National Museums (NML) sent me service agreements for the 3 workshops I’ll be running for them this year. Each agreement was 13 pages long – quite a task to read with a woolly head, but each basically saying not to set fire to the building or kill any of the participants. I’ve signed and sent off all 3.

As well as the signed agreements, they wanted an image for their website to promote the first workshop –upcycled jewellery 

This of course meant that I had to spend a day or so making samples of jewellery so that they could pick an image . They picked the simplest to make jewellery image after all that  (see link above)  but that’s fine. I’ll have to make a pile more samples nearer the date so that the participants can choose what they want to make rather than me doing a workshop teaching just one thing.

I haven’t sent off the application form for the open studio yet as I had to sort photos and build a website. That took ages and as I’m still waiting for the domain name to kick in, I can’t post a link yet. I’ve gone for the cheapest option for the website itself as no one really looks at them do they?

My poor aged laptop has been on fire the last week or so, so I hope there’s no more form filling or website building for a while.

Off to dose myself up again now and hopefully do some work…

Belated Happy New Year !

Mine has started off a bit stressful and panicky – but all self inflicted.  Mostly to do with studio space…or lack of in my case.

Being on a low income at the moment, I absolutely cannot justify paying out for a studio space – especially if I’m not using it 24/7.  I’ve  managed so far using the spare room in my house – which is also a dumping ground, a bedroom for the occasional guest and a place where things mysteriously end up.

Its not ideal I know, but up til now hasn’t been a major problem.

My aim this year ( I won’t call it a resolution) is to get my work out there and not to just plod along as I usually do.

So my interest was sparked when I received an email about the open studio tour happening in summer, asking if I would like to apply.

My own space is not an option. I don’t particularly want people traipsing though the house and also I don’t live within walking distance of the other studio venues.   People won’t travel , we know that.

A friend of mine, in the same position as me,  opened up her house / cum studio space a few years ago for the tour and apart from nosey neighbours wanting to snoop round, she got very few visitors.

So, I’ve spent an enormous amount of time sending emails and posting on social media asking for help in finding a venue.  Finally – just yesterday, I was offered a room .  Its actually in the community space of the church where I had my last installation.  There are at least 10 artists that I know of so far, who are in the immediate area, so that’s worked out really well.

Having got over that hurdle, I’ve now got to work on getting prints and cards made AND start a new website.  So much work…. I just hope its worth the time and expense.

In other news, a bit of a disaster with my last painting.  To save cash, I’ve heavily reworked old-ish  canvases rather than use new ones. One was already in a frame, so . not being able to find my roll of masking tape ( hidden under the junk in my ‘studio’ ) I used what I think was gaffer tape to cover the frame to save getting splashed on.

All seemed fine until I tried the take the tape off.  It was stuck fast. Although I managed to peel of sections of it, It left a nasty residue.  I just couldn’t believe what I’d done !

I spent ages doing internet searches on how to remove adhesive, then spent a whole day rubbing it down with white vinegar, using a hairdryer ( that’s a good tip by the way) and lots of sandpaper.  All this took of most of the original paintwork, so I could have left it unmasked after all.

My job today is to try to paint the frame without damaging my artwork.

Lessons learnt and all that….