Paint Ideas And Inspiration to Take Forwards In To The New Year

'Lemba Sunset,' oil and acrylic on canvas, 30 x 22 cm

As Christmas approaches I'm working on 9 small canvases because I know there isn't time to start my large canvases. 

The small paintings have been very positive because they allowed me to refresh some ideas. It's good practice to make a shift in your approach at times by changing the scale of your canvas or paper, to challenge your way of working. I usually work on medium to large canvases which sometimes means working slowly but with the small canvases I've been able to make changes very fast and to try out some other techniques. I've used each canvas to test some paint applications - thin acrylic layered, thick oil paint scraped and dragged, oil paint over marks of acrylic, knife painting, brush work, etc. These paintings opened up some other options.

The 2 orange paintings suggested, as I worked, the sunsets in Cyprus. At this time of day the sky can turn orange and this casts an orange glow across the land so sky and land become One! It's an unbelievable sight. As these small paintings developed I used elements from reality - dark shapes of Carob trees, small square buildings, paths - to build what turned out to be abstract compositions. They surprised me and I like to be surprised.

'Lemba Sunset,' (2) oil and acrylic on board, 21 x 31 cm

My focus is often the translation of landscape elements in to paint elements and I may take this series much larger in the new year.

'Rising Moon,' acrylic on canvas, 30 x 22 cm

I'm posting a few more of these small canvases as I reconsider my body of work for this year and think how I may go forwards in the new year.

'Fiona's Final Goodbye to Burrswood,' oil and acrylic on panel, 21 x 31 cm

Figures in landscape have been a theme since Art School and  I wanted to take some of the paint elements that emerged during working on the other small paintings in to an abstracted kind of landscape with a figure in it. There was no plan except to let the paint form suggestions and clues. The inspiration was my last visit to a place in Kent which I love and which has now closed to the public. The grounds are amazing and I've spent many happy days over the years painting there in all seasons which has created a deep connection with the land there. In this painting there's a figure but the exact colour has not replicated; it's actually more of a pink ochre and stands out more rather than appearing as an ochre coloured shape. (Unfortunately the restrictions of photography do not always allow an accurate reproduction of colour as I found when visiting a Howard Hodgkin exhibition some years ago. The paintings were quite different, and more amazing in technique, than the books and catalogues displayed.)

I added a vague chessboard in the distance (the chessboard of life) and was also seeking ways to represent nature but with paint marks. I can see this one being developed in to a large painting.

'Evening Poem,' acrylic on canvas, 22 x 30 cm

'Clearing in the Forest,' acrylic on canvas, 30 x 22 cm

I feel really positive about starting new work in January and exploring some of these ideas.