Part 3 Space, aesthetics and realisation
Part 3 Studio work – post 1
Since the last post at the finish of Part 2, I have made the decision to focus on our garden as the space for my exhibition next Spring. The garden with its sounds and colour has been a strong inspiration during these recent months of isolation and so it seems logical to carry through and allow the images and words to be experienced in these surroundings. Because the future possibilities of physical gallery spaces are quite uncertain still, it was necessary to find a creative solution. However flexibility is the order of the day and so I shall be preparing with the aim of making further changes if requirements alter.
Studio work has concentrated on two images. One is the reworking of a piece I did last year about birdsong.
When this piece was done it was something of a breakthrough for me at the time as it is a much larger format. However, with the further understanding that I am getting about composition and depth, the image needed further work. So I’ve spent some weeks working with it.
I am letting the image itself lead the way and a lot of time is spent simply sitting in front of it and letting the ideas come…some work and some don’t! Still exploring the sounds of the birds in the landscape.
I am enjoying the depth of the image, the more you look, the more you can see. There are bird shapes appearing all over the painting, very abstract and hidden which I like because that is how they appear in the landscape.
You rarely see the birds; you just hear them. So there is so much happening in the painting. Questions are still there about structure and while I’ve drawn into the painting with crayons, I still feel I want further darks ….I think I will walk away from it now.
The second image I’ve been working with is ‘The last rose’. The colours are coming along well and in the top right-hand corner, there is the suggested image of the dead rose. I am liking the drawing into the paint with charcoal and this seems to add structure. Both of these emerging paintings are together on the wall and it is interesting to compare the compositions.
I don’t feel that either are finished and the question I’m working through is the appearance of drawing in the work and how that seems to give immediate structure and yet, is that the structure I’m looking for? Perhaps it’s too obvious…