Get back on the bike

Cycle of painting:

I think this is OK...
Oh bloody hell, I've screwed it up: it's terrible.
Pit of despair (aka sulking).
Small light of possibility.
OK I think I may have rescued it.

Repeat ad nauseum.

There is probably a parallel with life there, isn't there?

Painting during rescue mode.

Elizabeth Cope

I was surfing about the place yesterday looking at paintings when I found this quote from an artist called Elizabeth Cope. I had an aha! moment, because I think the below explains what it is that I like about painting (and actually about making things generally).

"The act of painting is like doing a post mortem. You are involved emotionally and yet detached at the same time. This means that the act of painting is dispassionate as well as passionate. "


I really like her paintings. They are vibrant and energetic and have a looseness that I would dearly like to adopt. Mine are currently rather uptight little things.

When life gives you lemons

Paint lemons?

Every time I post in this blog I believe that I will begin again to post regularly. If you look at the post dates you can see that they largely coincide with the school holidays, and the inevitable upsurge of energy for things other than working and sitting on the sofa glugging wine. Still. Here is the finished lemon painting. It has half a million things wrong with it but actually I'm very pleased with it because a) it is an actual painting that I actually painted b) when I pass by it I catch myself thinking that I quite like it. Which is a reult of the highest order, really.


The rottenness of this photo reminds me that I should use my actual camera not my iDevice's.

After a short period of feeling quite blue (as well as going to work) post leaving college, I have now (yesterday) started a new painting. The iDevice pic of that is even worse than the above so I'll save posting it until later. Later being a time somewhere on a continuum between this evening and sometime in June, going by my posting habits.