Out in the open

The painting from the last post was in preperation for a very last minute group exhibition I tagged along with. The reason I wasn't saying much was that the lovely and talented Rima Staines is taking part, and the gallery owner thought we'd keep it'd be fun to keep it a secret till the last minute...Alas, he was invited out to tea and tortured for information :) (that last bit is sadly a fib). Unfortunately I couldn't make it along, too short notice, but it's a pleasure to be sitting beside her work...Especially given how fabulous her latest piece is!

Thanks all so much for the kind comments about the piece - I love it - it's brought about a whole ream of imaginings. Hot house flowers, thick petals, feathers dusty with pollen, giant red suns. Maybe it's the weather, the strange and unusual light and warmth. I feel tropical. Ridiculous of course, I think the temperature is about 7 degrees or similar...But what a winter it was. Any light is a blessing.

I just have a couple of things to report. The indiefixx Free Art project print (below) is now available for anyone to print to their hearts content here!


And I was given a lovely interview for The Sister Project here.

Somewhat furtive

Well amazingly I haven't been completely slacking off recently. Although the weather has been sickeningly beautiful and i've spent an hour here or there sitting on the front porch listening to a relay of chirrups as the birds run around.

This is the stream that runs beside the house...There's no easy way across but you can get yourself down past the little waterfalls and sort of hunker....hunkering's only fun for 30 minutes though.

Front porch bit where I tend to sun worship

Then this morning, a walk which was meant to be half an hour went on for 2 hours and involved me sinking into a mossy pit with my Converse on...It was a very squelchy walk home, and unfortunately the shoes are ruined for good, although I always think bashed up shoes look better, the smell can be off-putting.

In any case I had a very last minute bit of painting to do for something...I went through several stages of 'Oh this is awful, I am terrible, what the heck am I doing' this time because it was very last minute and because what began life as a small study had to become a real finished thing....I also went wildy off-track with my usual composition..


This was a very definite 'what on earth am I doing' moment...I was presumably channeling the cover of some Funkadelic album here.


Some agonising took place, and some adoration of Henri Rousseau


Mexican Relics? I liked the old beat up clock door I was using as a frame, but in actual fact my biggest problem became my ambition to fill this much space...As it turns out I can probably paint a flower a day, half a bird or 2 butterflies. So I had to cut the length of the frame down, lose some of the painting i'd already done, but at least I managed to finish it.

A bad shot, night time, 30 minutes ago. I'm happy actually with where this went, it's quite different in composition to my usual preference, but I do like the direction. Being under pressure is unpleasant in many ways because if i'd had the chance i'd have doubled the length of this piece, but then I probably would never have done anything like this without it....So all in all, a good thing.

Leisure

Being leisurely isn't something which works for me. I get cranky and uptight if I have to relax. Massages occasionally make me spasm. Anyway, with all that in mind i've been relaxing the last few weeks - spontaneously. I went for a walk by the stream and sat reading the paper today - presumably i'll have to pay for all this with horrible feelings of guilt sometime in the future. But not today anyway. Also, it's spring. Actual spring, with sunshine and bees and birds - it's such a blessed relief after a seemingly endless winter that it's a sacrilege not to go outside.

I wasn't entirely absent from the studio, but it was incredibly ambling.

Drank tea, sniffed incense

Sketched some bits.

Cleaned up the little altar. Sorely neglected these days.

Started on a small study for a future painting.

So that's it really - I am hoping the larger bird painting will start next weekend, it's easter so I have a longer break from work.

Hope you're all enjoying the start of spring x