Mid-Winter Hiatus

It's the coldest day of the year so far and I have been busy re-assessing where I am with my work. I ended up taking a very unplanned hiatus from work while I cleared out and reorganised my life. After drowning in paper and half finished ideas I can finally see the wood for the trees and my studio is back in a functioning state.

A Working Studio

Sometimes it pays to take a step back and work out what I should be doing, so with a new action plan in place I am looking forward to achieving goals for the summer.

I have neglected my Etsy Shop so this will be my main focus over the next few months. I am hoping to launch new prints and develop designs for cards, calendars and textiles. 

I have decided to take a break from the Emsworth Arts Trail this year, but for those that want to visit other artists and find out dates here is the link for the web site. www.emsworthartstrail.org.uk/

Of course that doesn't mean there's no painting happening. I have a few paintings rumbling along in the background and when I'm ready I will be re-opening my studio to the public.

Studies of Natural Objects

The Beginning of an Idea

This week it's all been about the under painting. This is a set of paintings depicting cloud formations that we get along the south coast of England. Some are taken from looking out to sea while others have been observed across farm land between Chichester and Portsmouth. Being next to the sea we get some amazing skies at dusk, this summer being particularly stunning, so depicting them in paint has been reasonably straight forward.

Seeing how they sit together

As I painted them in quick succession the colours in these underpaintings are sitting together quite nicely and are working well as a series. If this continues I will hang them in a square formation at the arts trail.

Drying Paintings

Having spent all day working on them I will have to wait a few days before I can apply the next layer. If I decide to start introducing glazes I may have to wait a week otherwise I risk lifting the paint underneath.