The process of painting: a winding journey

Today I want to talk about how paintings can sometimes take a completely unexpected turn. How the art we’ve made previously can inform what we are making today and how sometimes our ideas just take time and many different iterations to get where they are going...

Destination unknown

One small experiment or drawing might lead us somewhere unexpected.

One small starting point, might lead us down a new path, which leads to another path which leads us to somewhere exciting.

In revisiting an old path we find a new route through.

I frequently find that something small can be the catalyst to a whole new body of work. Finding the paths to follow is part of the joy of art making. We have to really pay attention to the things in our own art that are calling to us, notice the things that delight us, bring our own unique combination of fascinations together and combine them in a way that feels personal to us. Art making is often about learning to follow our own internal compass and noticing where it is directing us…

Art Work in Progress…

Bringing together fascinations

The three acrylic paintings I am currently working on started as a response to some quick blue, white and pink painted studies... But as the paintings progressed they took a different path. A few drawings in my sketchbook from several years ago provided a sign post, a catalyst, a compass and the paintings changed direction... These paintings are now a combination of different ideas, from different eras of my art, different experiments combined together to create a new route.

A winding journey

I’ve found in art making, that only rarely do things come to me quickly and fully formed, more often than not we just have to give our art the time and space it needs to unfurl and evolve.

I circle back on a well trodden path and find a new route through,

Combining together ideas and influences. fragments of ideas, something from here and something from there.., following an old path, following a new path, our art making is a journey which sometimes takes us to unexpected and delightful places…