Posting soon

Hi folks, I know I said I was going to take my time about posting and no longer break my neck about posting every day but it has now been nearly a week. The reason is that my family have been here from Belgium and we have been having a lot of fun with the kids and I have only managed about 2 hours of painting all week but so be it. I wouldn't have it any other way. I expect to have something to post within the next few days and in fact I am quite itching to get back to it.

The Perils of Painter-Blogging

I don’t know if I am alone in this but I thought I’d like to share a few ideas about Painter-blogging – I mean the situation of artists/painters setting up blogs where they post frequent (often daily) pics of their paintings.

I am finding that although this is a good motivation to keep up the hard work and paint every day, it can get pretty tiring – and maybe also the painting process itself can get a little tired. When the daily painting phenomenon started a few years ago one strong purpose was so that painters could make some ready “small format” sales and they could do so by communicating directly with their buyers and potential buyers. It has been proven that this works for many people. Even I have managed to sell a few this way. Peril number one therefore is that we can end up painting “for the market” or “for the sale”. If we have half an eye on what is going to sell or be popular then is that going to interfere with us truly being in touch with our artistic vision.?I think some people manage both. Their work sells and at the same time they are working “intuitively” or “from the heart”. For some of us I think there is a gap yet.

Peril number 2 is the comments invited at the end of each blog post and I don’t know about other people but I do find I take notice of those. I mean for a start it’s kind of people to bother to stop by and say if they like something. Often they say why they like it and that is sometimes useful. Sometimes I don’t get any comments and then I think “why haven’t I got any comments”? It’s a bit like patting the dog on the head and saying “good boy”. We shouldn’t really need that should we? I do know of people who have deliberately got rid of the comments box and I’m beginning to understand why. It can be seen as a very scary - and very misleading - indicator of “success”. However, I am still thinking it’s a case of learning how to deal sensibly and sensitively with it so I’m not quite ready to get rid of it yet.

So sometimes as a painter-blogger you can feel that you are losing a bit of control over what you do. I sometimes feel I’m “on show” (do others feel like that?); that there is an audience and I am wondering if that gets in the way of me digging a bit deeper. There are other painters waiting to see what I produce (just as I wait to see what other painters produce) and there are potential customers (probably saying “ why is she doing these strange figures all of a sudden”). Do other people feel like that or is it just me? Do I care? Should I care?

I have read of artists taking 20, 30, 40 years to arrive at what they themselves truly want to paint and quite frankly I haven’t got that long. Therefore I am slowing down a bit in terms of posting. I’m taking more time and thinking a bit more and above all I want to experiment a bit more and just pay attention to me and my own inner motivations rather then anyone outside.

In relation to this I found a great book on Google called “Finding your visual voice; a painter’s guide to developing an artistic style” by Dakota Mitchell. After reading about 10 pages on Google with great interest it suddenly stopped scrolling and said – hey, you have to buy this now, no more free browsing. So I have ordered it on Amazon and look forward to digging deeper into it.

We are privileged to have such problems aren’t we?

The Philosophers

Acrylic on wood 12" x 12"

I am fascinated by large stone buldings especially with neo Greek and Roman columns. During my short stay at art school in the sixties one of the things I loved doing was drawing columns and learning about the different parts and styles. This is a simplified version of part of the facade of the British Museum in London. I have posted two paintings today; the first, 'The Philosophers' I finished this morning, the second painting I did in 2007. Obviously I used the same photo reference to help but this time I made some changes: I worked with a square shape to give tension; I angled the columns to give the feeling of power and strength and I pushed the ladies more into the corner to continue their philosophical conversation. I worked in acrylic which gives a different feel and allows me to build up colour layers. I always think stone has hidden depth of subtle colour within it.
A main difference with this rework was that I edited the photo to be just black and white and I made the colours up which was surprisingly scary. In fact because of that the columns are warm against a cool wall whereas in the painting below the reverse is true.
If anyone is interested in buying either of these please contact me.

Discussing Wittgenstein

This painting has been sold

Oil on hardboard 12" z 7" (first posted June 2007)

Snow Queen with black glove

This painting has been sold

Oil on wood 7.5" x 7.25"

Another one from the Galeries St. Hupert in Brussels. The rich shop windows, mellow and gold with the expensively dressed good looking young people walking past. That black glove interested me though..

An old soldier

Oil on wood panel 7.5" x 8" £65 plus postage & packing

He looked like an old soldier, this gentleman with his neat appearance and upright bearing - no slouching along with hands in pockets. I kind of liked him.

A man and a woman in Paris

This painting has been sold

Oil on wood panel 8" x 8"

The Daily Painters Gallery asked us to post something related to the Valentines day theme so this is my offering. Make the most of it - there won't be too many like this :-D

Lady with a broken arm

This painting has been sold


Oil on wood panel 12" x 12"

Well, this is the final version. When I zoomed in on the hand to see the fingers better I noticed that her ring looked pretty expensive and studded with diamonds. I loved the way the cigarette just hung there nonchalantly like she was Mae West or someone. I'm really pleased that the final version caputured her "dignity" which I think is not there in the rough version below.