Things are progressing as expected with my paintings; I don't do a lot of planning and there are no real preparation sketches for each one, the body of work completed so far serve that purpose. My paintings are rarely completed without a struggle, the push and pull of the process, layer upon painstaking (some not so painstaking!) layer. I build them up slowly, just as I built the drawings that are part of this work and only when I have just enough reference to the subject without being obvious do I finess and call a painting complete. How much is instinct and how much objective criticism? It varies, but I find my work is always best when I stop thinking about it too much while I am making it, stop trying to exert too much control and just get on with it. The critical looking and decision making comes after each session, sometimes I have to obliterate most of what I have produced and at other times I can work with what I have.
At the end of each session I often make notes about my thoughts on progress and actions to take next time.
It is important, always to be prepared to change things, not to be too easily satisfied with what is there.
Didn't Cezanne say something along the lines that changing one small thing in a painting often meant that the whole painting needed to be redone?
For anyone interested, I have posted the complete set of photo's taken of this work so far on my facebook page:
Ryedale ArtWorks
The committee for Ryedale ArtWorks is in the process of organising the next meetings and events. A new initiative is going to be the Ryedale Drawing Open. This will start very modestly this year and will involve collaboration with Duckett and Jeffreys Gallery in Malton as well as some of the galleries among the membership of RAW. We are very excited by this, which grew from a joke amongst the three artists, ( myself included), who were rejected by Jerwood this year!
www.ryedaleartworks.com
Email Ryedale ArtWorks on:
ryedaleartworks@live.co.uk
Duckett and Jeffreys Gallery:
www.duckettandjeffreys.com
