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!
