In June, I spent the month in the studios in Cyprus at Larnaca and Paphos. Whilst there, I worked mainly on small scale using oils and pastels. Since returning home and developing some of the smaller sketches, I have realised that my interest is not what I am painting, it is the paint itself. Much like my first year at University, I favoured using oil paints and discovering their versatility and diverse technical applications.
The same is true for my final year. Because of the heat in Cyprus, I worked extremely quickly, using fairly thin paints with no linseed oil (to allow them to dry.) I liked the way this enabled me to build layers of oil paint, and now, working from the University studio, I am using a lot of thinned linseed oil in order to use oil paints in glazes, building up numerous layers of colour. Although this can be a very slow process, it is actually one I enjoy, enabling me to contemplate how the colours are reacting with each other and whether they work, what I need to do next and so on. The main reason I prefer to use thin layers is the depth and richness of colour that I can achieve, without having a highly textured surface.
