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.

Downtime mail art making and letting go

When I had just graduated, my father offered the advice that I should never give anything away because doing that devalues what the artist makes. It made sense at the time.  Luckily I came to my senses! 

My mail art is a way to unwind.  It's playful and as I make it I am thinking about who I should send it to. The who is it for, makes we work differently.  In general I never think I'll do this this time because someone might buy it. I (most artists?)  just don't work that way.  With mail art there is human connection and rather than taking away, for me this adds a dimension, allows me empathise in another way.

Above are twelve quickly worked pieces (postcard size) which I began with mounted photos I had found at the car boot sale and then cut up a few years ago as postcards to make mail art on. The black and white textures and shapes provided an intuitive base for playing with shape and colour.  

I owe lots of mail art and I never make mail art that I don't like myself or that I don't like making.  I gave myself yesterday evening to make some mail art and made four of these postcards.  (They are arranged in order with the first at the top).  I gave myself a few hours this afternoon again. Inevitably I will keep some. But they are mail art and most will be mailed away and only this photo and the process will remain.

Maybe how an idea begins to evolve

I went through my sketchbooks and gessoed out all the stuff that wasn't interesting.  In a few places I glued shapes of a different colour over dark places. The rose red was part of a paint chip I'd collected in Maine a few summers ago.  I blended a bit of bluey gouache into the gesso.This morning I woke early and found some objects that would work with the direction of the red.  The objects were not red.

Next I scanned the new image and printed it onto some cartridge paper.  I worked without reference to the objects with a Matisse book opened.