Eventually it’s quiet enough…

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I’ve had a wonderful few days in the shed, something that has been a long time coming, but sometimes there simply isn’t enough quiet to stop still enough to see and to create. This week there seems to be a level of stillness that has allowed creativity to occur. I have been working on this piece of work for nearly two years, a ridiculous amount of time, and since the gauntlet putter-downers have now completed their course as much as they could do, I feel a responsibility to complete my side of the deal – to try and paint as realistically as I can.

The piece is slowly taking shape, and the layers of colour building slowly – the last 24 hours especially has been simply joyous. At this rate it may even be done before Christmas!!!

Making a start

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Although this slide show goes from what it’s like now backwards to how it was, you can get the gist of what I’ve tried to do. The colour of the skin was all over the place, but in trying to rectify this I lost the eyes. I’m in the middle of trying to recapture the eyes now. More pleased with the tone of the skin although potentially not ‘smooth’ nor ‘realistic’ enough for my A-Level student’s gauntlet challenge. In my defence I think I may soak stain the whole skin again like I did in the beginning.

Also realised that the forehead is way too high but can rectify this when the hair is added …. goodness knows how I’m going to do the hair! Aiming to get into the shed at least twice before next weekend now virtual school is starting again tomorrow. But pleased with progress so far.

Progress so far in situ

More work and the joys of shed sharing

 

I feel the need to do a few more of these pieces. Starting the layering of letters in the background, building up the text and the texture in a variety of colours before adding the main colour over the top. It’s a great drying day today so I should be able to get a few layers done before tonight. The weirdest and most wonderful thing at the moment is that I’m sharing my shed space with an up and coming artist of the future. Our wonderful girl has got a school project about Queen Elizabeth II and she’s decided to do a clay sculpture of her head!

She’s worked quite diligently on it with a real passion and fervour. Can’t wait to see what it eventually looks like. Just enjoying being creative alongside her. She really is an encouragement just working beside me. All of them, the boy and the man, tend to believe in me more than sometimes i believe in myself. Seems to be rubbing off though. Love spending time in my shed. Such an incredible space, and when the sun is shining….. even better 🙂

 

 

 

Shadows

It’s a most peculiar thing. For a long time I have had a drought creatively but something over the last two weeks is slowly being released. Been looking at the theme ‘Shadow’ for the up coming Lichfield Prize associated with Emporium, Lichfield. I’ve taken the theme literally for both pieces with an additional twist. For my own I’ve tried to explore the two sidedness to my personality: the hiding, dark negative thoughts, withdrawn and often haphazard side contrasted to the much more presentable and confident positive side, the shadow of the darker one always present but often subdued or pushed back by the positive one. Weirdly, part way through this piece I couldn’t get the lip colour correct and this coincided with a random nose bleed….. the exact colour I needed!!

The second piece is of my Nana and will be much more realistic, a pencil drawing on crumpled paper. The thought behind this one is to explore the growing truth that as one becomes older, one can seem to become a shadow of our former selves and yet all that we are is still present and tangeable to those who know and love us. The scariest thing about this piece is that after sketching in the initial outline to ensure composition and accuracy of feature placement it looked a lot like me, which I suppose is predictable but startling all the same.

Enjoying the sunshine and the shed and the pigeons landing and hopping across the roof as I come to terms with my own mortality and try to embrace the whole of my personality.