I have been reading about an exhibition in London at the moment of photographs by William Eggleston and very much want to go and see his wonderful works. I read somewhere that he photographs ‘inconsequential moments’ and ‘alluring mundanity’ and that the colours in his photographs ‘practically glow’ . I am a painter, not a photographer, but would like to think I am trying to achieve the same result. I try to capture a moment in time, usually a woman comfortable in her own skin. So to this piece. After the bright colours of my last work ‘Is He With Her Now’ I felt it was time for a quieter painting. Originally the composition had a modern lampshade above the girl’s hair but decided this did not benefit the scene, so it has been painted out. Not sure whether I will keep the very matt black background and may introduce more light to the left of the work with a touch of red from the dress added to the black on the right hand side . Time will tell! If you would like to be kept up to date with what I am up to in the near future,…
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‘Is He With Her Now’ completed. 24 x 18″. 20 July 2016
“A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art” so said Lucian Freud, and I am not sure I agree with him. There have indeed been many moments with this work when I have been frustrated, angry, anxious, tentative etc etc, but every so often and usually by complete accident, I will put a touch of paint somewhere and the painting will just ‘sing’ and then there is indeed that moment of complete happiness. Or I will end the day thinking something is not working here, only to come in to the studio the next morning and wow, the picture looks great and again then I have that moment of complete happiness. As an artist, you can get so involved in your work and in a particular part of the detail that you can’t see the wood for the trees and get overwhelmed and lose confidence. That is the moment to step away from the painting and go for a walk, have a beer, read a book, whatever suits you, because when you return to the piece, you might just find that elusive dart of complete happiness. My apologies for being absent from Twitter…
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‘At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can’. Frida Kahlo I put this up today as it is Frida Kahlo’s birthday and she was so inspirational to me as a self taught artist, something not easy to be I find sometimes. The words are very true for all of us, not just artists, and female artists at that, who have always had it tough anyway. So to week 2 for this work and working up the colour before I get into the detail. There is an interesting exhibition just beginning in London of David Hockney’s latest portraits and I have been struck by the similarity in the colours I am using to his palette, entirely coincidental, although I have always been a fan of his colours and ideas. I need to get the hands right by next week, as I really want to give the impression of tension in these hands. This woman is beautiful ( under that hat !) and has a charmed life I would imagine, but to my mind she is worrying about where her husband is and who he is with……what do you think? I wanted to hide…
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