Fade

Hmmm well this was a little experimental and didn't end up the way I originally intended but sometimes paintings just go their own way. It's a little frustrating when you know exactly what you want to do but your hands, or brain or something just doesn't seem to know how to achieve it.

This gap in my head has held me back for years and I suspect I know what I have to do to fix it...been here before, just got to knuckle down and do it!

Part of the journey

Here is one of the canvases from the pile shown in the last post, or rather a part of it. I've gone over the original with delicate layers of paint and image transfers which will hopefully build into something a lot more interesting than how it was before. It's not so much that the original painting was awful, more like it was unfinished somehow. One of those ones you look at and cringe at because you know full well something's not right.

Illustration Friday - Discovery

Don't you love it when you move house and pull up the old wallpaper to discover more wallpaper from an earlier time, or old photos and letters in the attic, snippets of other peoples lives, layer upon layer, page upon page of mystery and intrigue...

Fragile

Remember this? I bravely started a new painting with the intention of pulling together all my different skills on one canvas and here she is. You can tell from the previous photo she has undergone a transformation, in fact she was completely scrubbed out and re-drawn. When I started this I didn't have much of an idea which direction I was going to take - I have trouble doing paintings for the sake of it, they need a story or a theme to exist - which is why it has taken me so long to finish it. However Inspire Me Thursday this week is about tears and emotions which fitted in with her look, she looks calm and serene on the outside but there is a hint of pain so I added a little poem and the broken butterflies to suggest inner turmoil. I'm not entirely sure it's worked, I'm out of my comfort zone so will put it away for a while until I make my mind up what to do with it.

Inspire Me Thursday - Architecture

I have been trying to complete a piece for Inspire Me Thursday for weeks now but the week flies by and it's Thursday again. This weeks topic is art and architecture which spurred me on to finish an abandoned painting started last year. This is about windows, a favourite motif of mine although I couldn't necessarily tell you why. I do like the idea of framing and structure and the idea that you are looking into a place different to where you are standing. Make of that what you will!

Sneaky Peak