Inside out and Sauerkraut

Inside Out and Sauerkraut, egg tempera on panel, 30 x 20cm

Sometimes when I set up a still life I get really excited because the beauty of the colour relationships and shapes just feels right. On Sunday, when I put this together (minus the tulips and plums) I couldn't wait to get started.  First I needed some tulips and some fruit. I raced to Stowmarket before the shops shut and had to visit two stores and there were only yellow tulips available. I thought the plums would work. 

From the start, this was a stop and go still life - I've had a busy week. Busy because the first three days of my week I leave the studio for as much as half the day: Once for life drawing; once for portrait group and once for Pilates.  This week I also met up with three artists.  And it was also the culmination of the Impeachment Hearings so my podcasts and live stream filled the studio with intrigue.  

I named the painting from a line in an opinion column, a line that seemed to me like the perfect metaphor for the world we inhabit at the moment. I don't find the radio distracting. Painting takes over and fills my brain -  I turn the 'inside out and Sauerkraut' into something else - dabs of colour on a support, that make me feel happy. Returning to the painting again and again, gave me the opportunity to look again and again and  time to think.  Yesterday I got to that place when I couldn't make what I was painting work and then I remembered that it was time to stop painting exactly what I saw in front of me.  I needed to create a version of the stilllife that had the feel that seeing the colours and shapes had instiled in me when I began.  That's a funny thing I find happens. The most exciting beginnings often become the longest toughest slogs.  Can you tell?