The Continuous attempt to solve problems from every angle.

Swallow Time, oil on prepared book page, (painted area 15 x 10 cm)

After a large pastel, of course it was time to do a small oil. I wanted to make a companion piece to an earlier painting on a book page. I approached the set up and the painting in a similar way to before, although this time I began using only brushes that were too big for what I was doing, (a suggestion from Louise Balaam). I was actually wedged in a small space in my studio and I kept having to shimmy out to find stuff.  In the end I just gave up and decided to do what I imagined with the tools I had …

First I found some book pages, glued then gessoed them and then I rearranged things from the previous pastel.  This is something I do now.  I try to finish what I start, ignoring structural elements if I can make things work and then look at what I've done and do it again differently. Matisse did that. 

So the things in my head today were:
- use more paint
- don't fiddle (use a big brush)
- mix the exact colour to begin with and lay colours right next to each other 
- use lots of variety, pace things
- design the page and use value to effect
- Dorothy Eisner

I am more purposeful. Working across media  and in different ways leads to very different outcomes.  Scale matters.  Composition changes radically depending on the shape of the paper.