16 Jun 2013

The Thief of Time

The funky foursome are finished and the design for the hotel sign is done, but there has been some procrastination (isn’t that something Pooh had trouble with? – well it appears to be a common artist’s trait as well). I’ve bought new materials, reorganised my pastel box, painted my toenails and done a lot of dreaming! But in all honesty, I have been very busy “thinking” whilst procrastinating over the next painting. It’s my desire to master a personal style, knowing that if I just paint without thinking about it I’ll play safe and get myself bogged down in detail. I’ve done a fair amount of analysis – collating paintings I admire, studying the colours and styles and appraising my own work. During this journey, I have come across hundreds of paintings and artists – but there are only 3 that I have obsessed about. By that I mean researched, bought the book and lost hours on the laptop: Mervyn Peake, Kyffin Williams and Eyvind Earle. Apart from the fact that they all have first names that are difficult to spell, they all used strong notan and produce drawings and paintings where colour is secondary to line and form. My series of chickens has probably stopped at 2, and whilst my hunt for the perfect Horny Hamish continues I shall try to convert my thoughts into some landscape paintings.

I couldn’t find the Pooh quote on procrastination, so I thought I’d leave you with this one….

" When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it."  A. A. Milne, Winnie The Pooh.






3 comments:

PatsyColchester said...

Yes, can relate to Winnie .. thanks for the memory ;)

Ed Anderson said...

I have read that style is the sum total of countless habits and decisions made during the creative process. Consequently an artist can't not have a style! To change that style one must change their habits and decisions. Perhaps studying the processes employed by artists who you admire would be as helpful as studying their final product. I am not an expert and this is only my opinion, and I toss it out merely as food for thought!

angela j simpson said...

You are probably right Ed. I often search the internet to find out about the processes used by other artists, but it's not always easy to find.