Painting an 'afterthought'

Blue Room Afterthought, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm,

Although I intended to take down the blue room today, I just had to get one last long look at it before  I did.  In front of the table I had made (out of piled up boxes, a board and some fabric) is a chair.  On the chair is some more fabric, draped, and I sat on the chair at the start of last week to be photographed.  The artist becomes her still life. The chair, the cloth and the memory of the photography session hanging around the room between the subject and my easel.  What if I took a few steps back?  What if I shamelessly let everyone see that it was something I had set up in my studio, not something I happened upon?

Today after drawing group I intended to do a quick painting on a small canvas.  I have said over and over that I want to paint more and one way I thought that might happen was if I did more quick studies, alla prima painting in my colourist way. The 'blue room' beckoned.  I think, because I'd explored it in detail, over time, I was happy to use shorthand and the shapes and a way of decribing their textures guided me in this afterthought..

Feeling unsure

Imagining Vuillard's Bouquet (oil on canvas 30 x 30cm)

The first few days of my weeks feel busy with life drawing, a visit to the care home and a morning in Ipswich at the refugee centre.  So even though I draw everyday, on Thursday mornings I can feel unsure.  It's not that I have a lack of ideas, it's more that I have at least two whole days stetching ahead and I don't remember where I was and what comes next.  It would be easy to do all the other things that I have neglected but I go into the studio and I begin. 

I was tempted to paint over something I had hoped I'd finished but I stopped myself.  It felt tight and joyless but I have a habit of painting over instead of waiting or solving a problem.  I was already frustrated and I hadn't even got my brushes out. I and then, sometimes when I feel like I can't paint, I can trick myself into painting and something simple and surprising appears.

Flowers On Orange Tablecloth (oil on canvas 40 x 40)

 

With my painting, I am trying to let the painting tell me what to do instead of recording what I see.  The painting on the bottom became the painting on the top.  I think it may change again...

Carnations, Christmas Beads and Smoking Jacket (pastel on paper 6 x 6cm)

And I continue to draw my beads.

Bouquet and Spy Notebook (2 versions)

Oil on canvas 30 x 30 cm

pastel on paper 6 x 6 inches

Using a drawing as a starting place for a painting is fraught with pitfalls.  I've been reading about Degas and there was a comment about how it is commonly agreed that drawings are 'inferior' to paintings. The statement wasn't made as a value judgement, simply as reflection. The book went onto say that Degas, contrary to most artists, managed to make drawings that were accepted and appreciated as much as any painting.   

Although I call myself a painter, I draw more than I paint.  I love paint and to paint, but I find the immediacy of drawing helps me to get down the esssentials and quite often those essentials say it all. For me, with painting, there seem to be more things that need to come together and I can't pull it off as often. 

A painting takes on a life of its own, distinct from the drawing.  I could paint the painting exactly like the drawing, but it doesn't really work, the idea becomes lifeless.  It's like paint by number. Instead, I try to let go but also must admit to making the mistake of hanging onto well painted or exciting passages even when they are no longer relevant.  And then that conflict between making it real and making it correct is always a struggle, too.