One Day Painting Project

I’ve had this idea written down in my blog ideas list for a while, but its something I always find excuses not to do. I don’t know why really. I love painting and playing around with ideas, and so taking a day to do just that, seems like something I’d love, but I think when I tell myself I’m going to do something, inevitably, I decided that I don’t want to do it. So, this actually only came about because I was at Shopfest on Sunday and needed something to occupy myself with.

I used mediums that I wouldn’t normally use, such as watercolour, chalk pastels and pens, which allowed me to create work that was different to what I normally produce. Using such unfamiliar tools forced me to think and work in different ways because they acted so differently to the acrylic paint that I normally use in my work.

I started each picture off with a scribble to create a rough composition and then built up the layers from that.

It was a really good experiment to push me out of my comfort zone, both in terms of the process involved in creating the work, but also the work I produced. I used different marks, different compositions and even different colour combinations. I think working on a smaller scale helped to (roughly 4”x6”) and working as quickly as I did (because I didn’t want to spend too much time distracted from potential customers!) It was very freeing to work like that, I think especially because I was doing it to kill time rather than doing it to create a piece of work. I think using such unfamiliar mediums helped too, because I had fairly low expectations of what I’d be able to create with them.