I had a tutorial on Friday with Lisa, a painting tutor who’s never seen my work before. It was really interesting to hear the opinion of someone who’s not afraid to say what they think! It was a bit nerve-wracking at times, but ultimately really inspiring and exactly what I needed to get me going again.
The basic gist was that she likes what I’ve done so far this year, but it needs “ruffling up a bit”, which I agree with. She told me to get a small sketchbook and fill it with quick collages/drawings where I’m not being too considerate, just externalising my thoughts. I started doing this today, and am already finding it’s giving me lots of new ideas.
As well as continuing doing these collages, I’m planning to get more observational drawing done. I’ve been lax about refreshing my source material but I’m feeling reinvigorated now, and hopefully it will soon start to show in my work.
Two of the three paintings I’ve been working on are now finished, and I’m feeling ready to move on and start something new. I’ve just started a little study based on the night photos in my last post, but I have a tutorial with someone who’s never seen my work before later this week, so it will be interesting to get a different opinion before I launch into new ideas.
I’ve designated today a Dissertation Day as I’m sat at home house-sitting while a huge tree in our garden is being chopped down!
It’s going well so far and I’m quite enjoying writing it. My title is “Mapping contemporary experience: a study of three artists and their unconventional geographies”. Essentially, I’m looking at the ways artists have used the practice of mapping to reflect certain things about 21st century life. The chapter that I’ve just completed looks at Matthew Ritchie and his approach to mapping the “information saturation age”. I’ve just started the second chapter (and hopefully will have done a lot more of it by the end of today), which is entitled “Julie Mehretu: mapping the contemporary metropolis”, and the third and final chapter looks at Sarah Sze’s installations and her use of shifts in scale.
It’s been really interesting researching the artists in such detail, and also having to write about how they have influenced my work. I find myself writing about how a certain aspect of my painting relates to theirs, and remembering why I work the way I do in the first place! Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in your own little world and lose sight of the bigger picture.
Well, things have improved a bit since my last post. Though I’m still struggling slightly with loosening up my painting, I’m becoming more comfortable with it and am keen to get these paintings finished and move onto some new work.
I still have a bit of finishing off to do so will upload pictures of the completed paintings in my next post, but for now here are a few shots of one of the paintings which is the most resolved.
I had one of those moments last night where you’re trying to sleep and yet new ideas keep streaming through your mind. This time it was that I want to explore the idea of changes in light in my next paintings- specifically, I want to base the colour palette and tone of my next paintings on what I observe of Falmouth docks at night and in the early morning.
I’ve just taken these pictures of the docks this evening, and tomorrow I hope to get going on figuring out how I’ll work them into paintings.
It’s been a frustrating week in the studio. I’m still trying to loosen up in my painting and though I know it won’t happen overnight, I’m finding it more challenging than I thought.
I started off by dripping paint a lot to give myself some sort of abstract ground, thinking that I would wait til it dried and then work over it to conceal some parts and leave others exposed. However, one of my friends saw the painting and said that she thought artists only used dripping like this when they were no good at gestural mark-making. This knocked my (already quite low by this point) confidence a bit and I started working into the paint while it was still wet, which was a bad idea as it just looked a mess.
Over the weekend I decided to set up a little studio in my garage so that I could practise “letting go” a bit without people being able to see. I think this helped, and along with being able to see my painting with a fresh eye over the weekend, I began to try to rectify the damage.
I’m still going with these paintings, and though I still feel like I’m venturing into uncharted territory with the loosening up side of things, I feel like I’m making progress, slowly but surely.
On the other hand, my dissertation is going very well so far. I think my problem will be cutting down my words at the end, as I have so much to say!
