Summer Open Studio ✔️ Now To End Of Year Preparation (& it looks a bit like this...)
Many commercial makers know how weird it feels to work on painting Rudolf & snow scenes in boiling hot studios in Summer - but early-artists-catch-the-fourth-quarter.
Open Studio was a resounding success. I may do a debrief post about it soon, but for now, the remaining artworks left on my walls are back in their hidey holes, and I have carte blanche to crack on with new works I’ve been itching to get back to.
Above is an image of my starting point for a new body of work I’m currently calling my Modern Folk Animals.
I recently wrote a little around the history of Folk and Naive Art you can find the post here, doing so set me in a good mindset for making new animal study works.
I set myself two intentions:
No looking at ANY reference materials, I have more than a gazillion years of study drawings made over the years
Work quickly, no fannying around! Make the mark and walk away.
Most of the above works came out of my first few days working this way. My main surprise is the colour palette, which is much brighter than I had intended, all very jolly and fresh - who knew?!
Once these first few works were made, it was time to get ready for Open Studio. I hid them away allowing time for me to think them over and how I might further the collection of them.
Finding some scraps of wood and old paint leftover, I couldn’t stop myself with going further, making sure not to slap paint around too much in order to protect the work on the walls for my weekend visitors.
Now, I do love Geese. Boy, do I LOVE to draw, paint, and print Geese on my printmaking press. It’s the shape I think, and the fact that they are sociable - even the term a gaggle of geese gets me inspired. Dark blue/black background with white geese on top?
This painting really only had one title: ‘Ghost Geese’.
Continuing my two self-imposed rules above of no reference materials and working quickly, I was happy’ish with these paintings but fearing a bit too much repetition. I swapped materials today, opting for my printmaking press to make some Monotypes (Monoprints).
It’s been some years since I’ve made any monoprints, but in the name of continuing exploration, I dug out my rollers, tried to find my flattest surface to work on, and off I went.
Some years ago now, I made a collection of work called ‘Inkteriors’. These works were all based on the items in our homes that we use daily - and all hand-drawn in Indian Ink (hence the name of them).
Wanting to bring a few of the Inkterior discoveries in, I’ve been refreshing myself by drawing some Vessels. During a trip yesterday to ‘The Museum of The Home’ in East London, I had my trusty sketchbook with me and made some truly awful drawings, just to record shapes.
How lovely to see these shapes appear in my work today, namely an 18th-century vase I drew (will add a pic).
Bringing together the story of a home item (the vase) and my recent animal studies feels exciting, another corner turned in these new works.
Where they will lead, I have ZERO idea, but this is the point: we never (ever) know until we get there.
More soon and much love
