learning and emerging

cuckmere collage 1 

blue triangle

cuckmere collage 2

I quite like these - they are the end of the current Cuckmere Haven project and I think they are significant for me. They are well within my comfort zone, though I am using new colours, and for me they are different because they are so controlled. It feels like they are a full stop. Throughout the project I have made a lot of work and moved forward mentally and physically with my art. Now I need to look back and reflect.

I had my crit with my mentor, Colin (www.colinboothart.co.uk) this week and it was really useful to look back on all the work and to get a sense of what's good and worth pursuing and what's just OK. He picked out a sketch which encapsulated a free and sensitive balance of materials and marks.

river broadside 

This is more typical of work I have done in the past. Except that it has a maturity to it that I haven't acheived before.

 It's really helpful to talk to someone who has been there before and recognises what I am able to do and who can point me in the direction of other artists that I should look at. It made me realise its time to focus just on the people that I can learn from and the journeys those people took. Sandra Blow, Robert Motherwell and Roger  Hilton. So this is my list to action:

1 Research artists Sandra Blow, Robert Motherwell and Roger  Hilton
2 Change my workspace round too so I can use the biggest space for my work and the smallest for sleeping.
3 Concentrate on a new body of work for Coastal Currents using the river sketch as a root. -  try developing wave pictures but going out and doing it all on location different sizes and using different materials.
4 Find ways of making a mess and getting bigger work made - have fun and not worry about the end result.
5 Look at Wilf's drawings, his use of space and marks.

Children have a lot to show us about mark making and making drawings that are uncensored and unedited. Wilf's are brilliant - he has a quirky eye and captures lots of fun in his art. I found some great drawings by Jago today of birds. I will blog them later.

Its really hard being an aspiring woman/mum painter the demands on time are impossible but I have so much that I can also harness and use and children's art  and approach to it is one of them. I am going to go into Jago's school and do art with them  before the end of term so I think I will learn a lot from them.