Play Boards and loosening up.

The first assignments on the course were to creat an inspiration board and a desire board.

It will be no surprise that my inspiration board included the landscape of Provence, trees, flowers, spring and wildlife. These are well represented in my current art.

My desires - well this was harder. What was it I really wanted - make better art obviously but on top of that I want a larger studio, I want to feel confident enough to enter shows including juried shows, loosen up on my landscapes but without loosing the feel of them. The idea behind this is that if we don't say these things they will never happen, but somehow saying them makes them more likely to happen.

Our first painting assignments was to create two boards (12x12inch) by just putting paint down and not overthinking everything or even thinking about it. We were to call them play boards. In effect this is a loosening up exercise and fun to do. I often overthink my paintings before I start, and changing those ideas as the painting progress is hard.

These are my Play Boards

The two boards have a different feeling to them and are designed to show that it doesn't matter how you start as they will be worked on later and covered over with paint.

Fear - and taking an art course

I've been busy since our return from Namibia, catching up with a 12 week course I've signed up to. I missed three weeks while I was away but I am now on track.

It's a course run by Nicholas Wilton with a team of experienced artist. It is aimed at giving you the confidence to be certain and happy with the choices you make while painting and improving your skills. The graphic above was from a conversation between Nicholas and Cheryl Taves about 'Overcoming Fear and Resistance'.

To quote from Nicholas

"Fear and Resistance seem to creep up in our art process and grab us by the throat, often when we least expect it. It can derail our art making efforts and cause us to feel lousy about ourselves."

This is quite a strong statement but I have found elements of this in myself just lately - not knowing how to take the next steps on improving.

I find the above quote quite motivating, so perhaps taking the course is already having an effect!

Join me in my journey.

Back from our safari

I'm back from my three week break. Once again enjoyed Namibia with the added bonus of going into Chobe National Park in Botswana. We were on the go all the time, with lots of drive, lots of game watching, lots of early mornings and broken nights listening to the night noises.

I could bore you all for hours, but here are a selection of photos to give you a flavour:

This little creature is a Pangolin. One of the most endangered animals. He was rescued from a restaurant about to become the main course for some Chinese businessment.

Water buffalo. A mean looking fella

About to be charged by an angry elephant... but I think he was only warning us for being too close

A more even-tempered elephant.

this guy posed for us

 And our prize photo. Such a shame they have to be dehorned

Valentine's Day Roses Throwback Thursday

Valentine's Day Roses

30x30cm

on 1.5inch box canvas

SOLD

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Provence Poppy Extravaganza Throwback Thursday

Provence Poppy Extravaganza

Oil palette knife painting

15 x 20cm (6" x 8") on box canvas

SOLD

This is the last in the current series of poppy paintings. Although, as I get so much pleasure from painting them and I still have lots of photo references, who knows .... LOL

Painted with a palette knife, on a highly textured ground with a pink underpainting which is allowed to show through the finished painting.
Another view of the poppy meadows can be seen HERE