Getting it Right

I'm currently going through a 'driven' phase with my artwork.   It's rare that I get so badly addicted. It's rather like when I'm reading a good book that I can't put down, so that every spare moment I get is devoted to reading, only on this occasion its artwork.  Our kitchen has now been taken over by painting paraphernalia so that I can paint for 10 minutes in the middle of preparing a meal, or whenever, it's got that bad.

It all started when I decided to just mess about and have a go at producing some decorative papers.  It helps that I have a really inspirational book devoted to the subject, which gave a starting point, but it was an excuse really to play with paint and different media, purely for the love of it.  From there I moved on to decorating or painting an old book I had.  I've long been a fan of artists books or journals, and of altered art in general, but have never really successfully got to grips with them myself.  But this book has now become my 'trying out new ideas for the fun of it' book, sort of like a sketchbook, but also something of a sampler, for different techniques as well as ideas.  Because it is just somewhere to try out ideas and have fun, I'm not getting too hung up about it, and am letting myself go a bit more.  It doesn't matter if it's not very good, because it's the learning that counts.  This is something of a release for me, in spite of the fact that I have always instinctively believed that there is no right or wrong in art, and that it is mine so I can do what I like with it (somewhat self indulgent, but then I think a lot of art is fundamentally self-indulgent by its nature).

However, doing what you want can require strength of character, particularly if you have the kind of personality that seeks approval all the time, and especially if what you want to do is not especially 'fashionable' or is different to what others are doing.  Again, personally I think that different is good, in fact I often feel that if what I produce isn't different, then it's not good enough because it should be, but it wasn't something that my formal art training really encouraged, where instead we were under some pressure to work in whatever style of art was in vogue at the time.  I also suffer from feelings of guilt when I am doing something that is purely (from my own point of view) for enjoyment - where does that come from?

All this is I find very inhibiting - that internal dialogue about what I should be doing -  so anything which allows me to put that to one side feels like a huge release.  Maybe I'll develop some of the ideas a little further at some stage, maybe I won't - it doesn't really matter, but at the moment I'm very happy to be experimenting, learning and having fun.  Hopefully, I'll be able to share some of it in due course - if I can prise myself away from creating long enough to take photos.

Just experimenting...

I've not been here for a while - life's just been getting in the way unfortunately.  Compared to the time I had when I was young, free and single (and more to the point without kids) I have so little time to be creative now, and quite often even when I manage to make the time, I end up feeling a little guilty, because there's always something else that I feel I should be doing instead (usually housework or other chores).

Still, over the last couple of weeks, I've managed to exhibit my landscape drawing at the local arts festival, dropped off my miniature building for the Crafty City project, and sold a couple more paintings online.  I also found the time to experiment a little more with some cyanotypes.

Those of you who also read Artful Adventures may start to notice a pattern forming here - I will do an activity with the kids (usually one that especially appeals to me) and as I'm working with them I begin to see all the potential and possibilities that the activity offers, with further inspiration being provided by what the kids themselves are doing with it.  I am then fired with enthusiasm to further experiment with the activity by myself, and see where it leads me as soon as I have the opportunity. So I originally tried this activity with my boys (you can read about it here).  They really enjoyed it, but I suspect I enjoyed it even more.

The lack of sunny days meant that my opportunity to experiment with it further was somewhat limited.  But I still had quite a stack of paper left and lots of ideas, so as soon as the weather allowed I dug it out and had a go by myself.  I now want to get hold of some of the specially treated larger sheets of watercolour style paper you can get so that I can create some larger images - I quite fancy having a try doing some mixed media compositions with these.  I have no absolutely no ambitions to work with negatives  - what appeals to me about this technique is directly taking an object, such as some lace or plant material, creating an image from it, and then adding to the print in some way to create something unique.  However unless we have a particularly sunny winter I suspect it may be next year before I get round to that.  In the meantime I can perhaps make use of some of the experimental prints....