An Outline of My Painting Process

'Feeling My Way Through the Land,' acrylic and ink on canvas, 100 x 80 cm

Before I begin a really large (120 x 160 cm) canvas I have been working on several medium sized paintings as a kind of preparation for working on a larger arena. I also wanted to explore some landscape elements I may use in the large painting which will be submitted to an international exhibition when finished. (Not a lot of pressure, then!)

The two medium sized canvases I am posting show how I often approach my series of landscape 'poems' from slightly different angles. The first, 'Feeling My Way Through the Landscape' was evaluated during frequent short breaks.  After the initial calligraphy I took time to think about each area before making changes. Some areas of detail remained untouched, some were painted over so that the lovely pale brown under-painting shone through. I wanted that base colour to have an emotional impact and for my mark-making to be like my emotional footsteps across an emerging landscape. My landscape experiences are so important to me that often my paintings are inspired by these. I like the mark making and colours to be almost like 'tracks' across the land.

'The Pathway to Forever,' acrylic and ink on canvas, 100 x 80 cm

This second painting takes a more spontaneous approach because I let the paint language dictate the calligraphic brush strokes and colours, with a lot of layering of fluid colour. (Once again, the photograph is not completely accurate; the blue is more of a grey-ultramarine blue). This reflects my approach when working with ink on rice paper which requires a confident touch because you cannot alter marks once they have been painted - other than tearing up the picture and making a collage (an idea for the future). I like the way that marks and colours can suggest a place or world, and as the 'landscape' emerges I take short breaks to evaluate what is going on, while wanting to retain the spontaneity of mark making. This can mean erasing parts completely, altering the intensity of a colour, or viewing the painting from another side. Sometimes I even prefer it from another side and will continue working it that way around.

The 'spontaneous process' paintings tend to be worked on fairly rapidly and with a lot of destruction and over-painting. Then they need a period of being left alone while I think about them. One recent painting, 'Three Escape the Deluge,' (which I am posting again) was left for a week, pending destruction, but then I decided it was actually finished. Artists are not always the best judges of their work in the immediate aftermath, so leaving a work alone allows the emotional censorship to fade and the chance to see what is actually happening in the painting.

'Three Escape the Deluge,' acrylic and ink on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

Painting really requires much testing of colours and shapes  and making mistakes, especially when your imagery often emerges through processes and letting the paint speak. Painting from the landscape or a figure has an exact set of references that can give a skeletal framework to attach colours to but working in an abstract way requires an intense attention to edges, shapes, colour transitions, colour relationships and also drawing. I am not saying that figurative work is more easy, just that you are starting with something to work from whereas working from the process of putting things down and 'trapping' an image takes some time and a lot of awareness of potentiality. You have to be open enough to follow where certain clues might lead you.

However, I also like to start from a visual memory and the final painting I am posting was inspired by a recent summer evening in the park in Tunbridge Wells (Kent, UK) watching a music festival with my husband. We sat up on a hillside with the moon rising to the side. There was some Lavender nearby. So my skeletal references were: moonlight, the full moon, lavender (purple), hazy shapes of trees, the glow the moon cast across the slightly cloudy sky. Painting that moon was a big challenge and I must have changed its colour, shape and position at least 12 times!

'Lavender Moon,' acrylic and ink on canvas, 50 x 60 cm

Once my large canvas is stretched I will post images of it as it progresses.

(Afternote: For my previous post I added a slideshow of some of my artwork on YouTube. It is not the best video as the colours did not translate well.)