A colourful accidental blob of colour turns into a posy of red flowers
A wonderful start to my day was a call from my publishers to go through the early proof of the first half of my new book. I had previously sent off my text and images and my ideas for the initial lay out, and the publisher has come back with the look and feel of the book as it will be when the book is published. There is something so very exciting about this stage of writing. The book has taken a life of its' own and is looking so gorgeous already, that writing the next chapters is all I want to do at the moment and with no workshops for the next few weeks my focus can solely be on writing and putting the next temptingly pleasing demonstration sections together.
I usually stretch myself too thinly between teaching, exhibiting and writing when my I know that my heart purely wants to paint. And it has taken me some time, and courage to back away from teaching in UK for a whole year to simply do just that. Paint. But my art work is now so much better and I have so much more to share. I love the description that we, as humans, are like cars, and we can't run on empty. Whilst I admit that I wasn't running on " empty" with inspiration, I wasn't giving myself enough free time to " top up my inspirational tank" to research new ideas. I have done that now and feel so much better for it!
However , back to my book. Towards the end of the discussion on changes to be made I walked to my easel and allowed colour to run over a scrap of paper. I let this colour dry completely while the conversation began to close and slowly, bit by bit, afterwards I added shapes where I could see them in the original red " colour blob".
My garden must be continually on my mind as small flowers and individual petals emerged with encouragement from my brush work and colour additions.
Colour blob before too many detail of flowers has been added
It is strange how something can be made out of nothing. Just a random red wash.
A throw away piece, just playing with colour, relaxing. Thinking about nothing else in the world.
Just finding that time to unwind and simply paint no matter what the painting is.
Joy.
Calm
Fun.
And a break.
But now its' time to paint seriously again and work on my book.
I'm looking forward to it!
************
Artists Tip for the day
Don't take yourself too seriously when you paint. Allow yourself to just play with colour now and then. You may discover something new, you may just love the freedom of playing and most of all, you will be moving your brush minus the pressure of always having to paint a serious piece.
No comments:
Post a Comment