A Touch of Colour

WARNING: PHOTO HEAVY POST - this may take time to load!!!

Some of my long time readers will know that I delve into the world of all things creative - it's just who I am. As well as my love for making clothes I am a passionate artist. I love colour and I love to create. I can get lost in art work creation, far more than I do in any other media. However, it takes up a massive amount of space. I don't have my own studio and the dining table and back yard are more often my pop-up studio spaces. This means that I tend to have short bursts of art making as the family like to be able to eat their dinner and the washing needs to dry somewhere too (I use the airer for my prints and paintings).

In those quiet days between Christmas and new year, while the weather was poor and everyone had eaten far too much to worry about what was on the table, I made art. I was prolific. I worked on over 20 pieces!!!!

Don't misunderstand, I did not create this many pieces from scratch. I began by experimenting im my sketchbook with some abstract forms. I haven't done this type of work for some time and it shows - I used to work in a purely abstract way some years ago and I'm drawn to shape, colour, line and texture. I used a few small tubes of acrylic, posca pens and oil pastel. I had forgotten how much I love working with oil pastel. It must be one of my favourite drawing media.

The next day I raided my portfolio of unfinished work. Some of this stuff had been in their for 4 or more years and was begging for a new lease of life. Some of this work I cut up.

I wasn't really happy with the collages so stopped and instead pulled out the paint, pastels and paint pens again. I limited the paints to just a few colours and instead tried to focus on my use of the pastel.

When I work like this, I don't feel precious about the work. These are pieces that I feel are not working or lack some form direction. As I start to work, 

I look for the shapes that the original suggests to me. As I work on them some are successful, some aren't. Some I love, some I don't. Although I often find other people love the ones that I don't like.

Many of the original pieces were monotypes. some were abstract in nature as I had experiemented with using a Gelli plate - I still haven't quite got into using this thechnique. Others were more traditional oil based monotypes created on perspex. I love the long working times of this technique, but that means drying times are long too. Many of these had a more landscpae feel about them, as they had been created during my Seaspace project. The original surface really did determine the materials I used on top. The oil pastels work well on the oil based monotypes, and the paint pens are better on the Gelli printed work.

I let the shapes and colours of the original dictate the form and shapes of the layers that I added. Often sitting for a few minutes before adding anything. Letting one piece dry while I added to another. Some had only a few marks added, others had several layers. Many ended up feeling like abstracted landscapes.

I have shared just a few of them here (When work settles a little I'll actually try to get some of this stuff posted as an online gallery). I wonder which is your favourite?