During the summer I was fortunate enough to catch the Vincent Van Gogh exhibition at The Tate Britain. I was initially a little disappointed as the first section was literally other artists’ work and van Gogh’s attempts at trying to copy or emulate them. I was struck by how similar his painting apprenticeship was to the A-Level course: looking and being influenced by other artists in such a way that it develops your own voice.
Now in full time teaching I am finding it incredibly difficult to find time to do my own art but the A-Level and GCSE classes are moments where I can use ‘mock ups’ or ‘examples’ to keep my creative expression alive. Creating a portfolio to enable the students to see the process, the structure and the type of work needed has been a real privilege and working alongside these amazing young artists has also been a real inspiration.
The piece above is based on the work of Joan Dumouchel, her paleness of face, the use of gold in the background, in the hair and on the lip, the soak staining of the background and placement of colour – all these elements contributed to the formation of my own work. My plan is to look at three or four other artists and see how I can glean skills and processes and ways of seeing from them, and then pull it altogether in a series of work. Looking forward to creating again.
I said this on Facebook – I love that there exists a Greek word that needs nineteen English words to explain it!! But it exactly sums up what’s I was trying to say. Have courage. Go for those dreams. Step out from that comfort zone. You are brave. You are enough.
I’ve had this idea, picture, in my mind for such a long time and at last I think I might actually be making steps towards starting it. Today I’ve been trying to work out which type of paper to have as the printed base. I’ve kindly had several sheets printed with various photos of people, or in some cases squirrels, with their hands in the air, and I’ve mocked what I want to achieve on a much smaller scale. The final results made me smile as these squirrels stand there, drippings wet with paint! We’ll see how they dry.
I love this technique. I use it all the time and instead of allowing the paint to drip down the canvas I literally pour it onto the canvas and wait to see what happens. I felt the two sections were really separate and needed some sort of visual link to pull the piece together. I also love the way the paint clings to the edges of texture and emphasises it. The only problem now is that I can’t do anything until it is dry, and with the weird weather today, that could be a while. Lovely to have time to blog though 🙂
It has been just lovely to write words of truth over and over onto these pieces. Even though the individual words and letters cannot be made out, I know they are there: words that lift my heart and make it soar, words that I believe, words that remain when all else is uncertain, words that I can stand on. And, although it is so obvious, it takes me by surprise how my thinking changes and shifts when I focus on truth. My gaze lifts from myself to Him. My thoughts become clearer, hopeful and joy is near.
And as these thin layers build, it just confirms to me how, even though the layers of paint are fluid and in themselves translucent, together they form something more solid and substantial.
For the first time in maybe eight years we had an evening without the children’s and therefore a morning without them too. And so nine o clock this morning found me in the shed, dousing the paintings with white and sharpening them with black. They are becoming different from that I expected, not as calming and more colourful, which is a surprise, but it is only the first few layers so anything could happen.
artannacrook 