Something has shifted in my art practise. It’s influenced by what’s happening in my life I’m sure. Having for a few years ignored my daughters claims that I’m going deaf, I agreed to have a hearing test only to be told that she was right all the time! Unbelievable at first but thankfully I succumbed and now have a pair of very expensive but truly remarkable hearing aids. They’re almost invisible but make such a difference to my life. I now realise how much I’ve been missing out.
And it’s somehow had a calming effect on me. I feel more relaxed and more willing to slow down and make more considered decisions. This has a very good side effect on painting strangely. I’m really not bothered about rushing to produce a masterpiece but feel more satisfied with just experimenting endlessly and delighting on making even very slight discoveries and improvements.
This is a recent painting made after several sketching walks by the River Stour. I reworked it over a period of a week until I felt reasonably happy with it. Next I began two smaller paintings based on a walk in the Gloucester hills with Chris, Karen and Henry and 3 dogs in tow. The light was amazing.
This led to another two where I looked back at another walk at sunset with really strong red light on a puddly path through trees.
These two are very unfinished but hopefully I’m learning through the previous two, which again, are not quite there yet. It’s good to have several things growing along together as the work feeds into each painting and they form a conversation of light and water together. I’m content to work on this series for awhile and possibly to extend it with more images as I get closer to the memories of the walks.
It’s a good more meditative way of painting and I hope more mature and calm. Having been stuck for a while I have discovered that the only way to get unstuck is to just paint and then one thing leads naturally to another.
