Making room for new paintings
This month, I’ve been focused on tidying and organising to get in a good place for making new paintings.
I’ve done a big cull of my work to date, keeping only the very best of my original paintings and drawings. (I do keep photos of transcriptions and anything else that is interesting or significant that I want a record of.)
I’ve started using Valise, which is a fantastic, easy-to-use, cloud-based inventory system. (Not that I’m selling work yet, but I want to be organised well before I do.)
I’ve tidied my studio (aka the garage), which was a shambles after winter. Feels much better!
Bush walk to Fairy Falls
Mixed media on watercolour paper
A few weeks ago, I went for a bush walk with my family and some friends down to Fairy Falls in the Waitākere Ranges.
To get to the falls, you have to walk down more than 500 stairs, some of which is quite steep. By the time we got to the bottom, my knees were shaking!
It was beautiful, though, and I made the above sketch of a pool next to a big boulder at the bottom. The perspective is badly out, and the colours don’t really match what I saw, but I like what I captured.
For this and the next sketch, I used watercolours, Derwent XL sticks, gouache, and a watercolour pencil.
Wind, sand, and sunburn!
Mixed media on watercolour paper
On a another day, and with some other friends, we went to Muriwai Beach.
While we were there, I made this sketch of the gannet colony. (The birds are a bit hard to see unless you zoom in.) It was a hot and very windy day, and even though I put sunblock on, I got burnt, and I ended up with sand all through my watercolours!
I’ve decided I quite like the square-format sketchbook. It allows me to paint in a square or landscape format.
A few other bits and pieces
I can’t remember where I found this, and I haven’t read the book, but it captures well why art has become important to me:
Art is an antidote against any kind of superficiality, and perhaps against superficial spirituality most of all.
—David Baily Harned, Theology and the Arts
“The joy of clutter” by Matt Alt on Aeon. I must admit, I’ve had a very romanticised view of Japan and its minimalism, probably not helped by the film Perfect Days, which I loved.
Bob Burridge’s YouTube channel, BobBlast. A fun learning experience, and he does some really cool things with colour. He also reminds me of a certain other (more serene) Bob who had a TV show about painting. 😊
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