Yellow things

I wrote my blurb for the NEAC catalogue today and chose an image to send too.  Summing up the year was a little tricky, but good. One of the things I thought about and added before I pushed send was something I have realised about me. My process is about discovery.  I don't work in a totally premeditated way but it's also not quite the 'not knowing' way I was taught.  I realise I paint and draw to understand. So, I might set something up to test but I won't know where the painting and drawing will take me or even what I really want to find out until it's nearly over or maybe even later.  It's intuitive but I am discovering and learning as I go and that's why observation has mostly been my starting point. Knowing that feels good!

I continue to read the book I mentioned in the previous post, learning some things I guess I really ought to know…  I have been looking at art in galleries, books and museums checking to see if those RULES are hard and fast and the answer is a resounding 'NO'. I went to the Monet at the National on Friday and lo and behold Monet places his subject slap bang in the middle sometimes. His skies might be darker than the ground in some paintings too. Thinking about those things is never a bad thing, though. 

Today I wanted to test out one of my nine new canvas covered rabbit skin glue/gesso panels and decided to try to see if I could use the colour yellow in my composition (lots of daffodils at the moment). In general I find yellow and red difficult colours to use together so not quite sure why I did that except the things were nearby and once I'd arranged them they seemed to work.  I used the basic palette I was taught to use at Stanford and did not use any black. I loved working on the panel and Louise Balaam's advice to put a final coat of rabbit skin glue over the gesso was brilliant!  I will come back to this tomorrow and consider that blue glass vase on the right.

January light

It's one of those reassuring January things when the flower of the hellebore appears. As you know, it's been busy around Nayland Farm and frankly amazing that I have mananged to do anything let alone a little painting on book pages. I wedged myself in the corner of the studio while Figgy and Jonny made monotypes for the week they were home. Over a few days, before the hellebore drooped and closed I worked in spurts. I made a conscious decision not to have any pattern and wanted a feeling of white so chose my objects with that objective. I would have painted on (but needed to teach Figgy to frame her own gorgeous monotypes) and I still could but there is a certain freshness that I suspect I will just leave. But what do you think, should I crop it to the edge of the painting or not, or should I crop it into a square?

Meanwhile, I returned to London on Friday to visit John Dobbs (WONDERFUL) and to draw, or in this case make monotypes with the NEAC drawing school. Kate sat for the full two hours and I made two prints and two ghosts.