Managed to nip in the gallery and eradicate ‘The Slug Cloud’ as we have affectionately named it! These were my thoughts on the matter last night:
Progress has waned this week. I still wasn’t proud of it, I certainly wouldn’t want to exhibit it yet, despite the positive remarks. The problem with painting ‘in public’ and, although I’m allowed to paint upstairs at the moment, is that you have witnesses to your painting habits and everyone sees those touch and go decisions being made mid painting, mid
flow, expletive moments of spontaneous mark-making that can go either way when you get carried away, or when you’re maybe testing alternative slants or options and seeing how they develop before eliminating the duffers. Even those ‘just enjoying what the paints do’ periods, painting just for the sake of it.
In spite of the sketches and preliminary paintings, because the painting doesn’t have to resemble anything specific and I’m not painting with photos in front of me, there is less emphasis on looking right or wrong and more time to play and develop by going with what works. Although the composition is in place by this stage, one still tests the ground with unsatisfactory parts of the piece, to see where it could go: after all, you don’t want to mess with the bits you like that work.
The focal point of the painting is crucial. I’ve been in a pre-menstrual, overworked with the business side of things state of delirium! And maybe over-submerged in my work, I literally needed to take a step back. In more ways than one. But a bigger studio would help.
I’ve always known it would have to go: the cloud that has so far resembled a crocodile, a rodent, a whale, but ended up as a huge slug. Pretty colours though!! I’d been working on other areas and avoiding starting the boat. I’ve been too tired in my painting sessions to tackle the important bit – the boat – and the slug has slept and slugged off. Back to slugging the kids round tomorrow, difficult even to dip in and scrape it off, wish it was upstairs at home.
