What Does An Artist Do All Day?
DAY SEVEN
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DAY SEVEN 〰️
11/08/2022 05:21 – DAY 7
Starting to feel like Groundhog Day. Same old, same old. The TDL is still same old, same old. That won’t get touched today as I am off to pay my last respects to an uncle. Life, and sometimes Death, gets in the way of being an artist. Well it feels like that but really it isn’t quite so. Both Life and Death actually feed into the Muse. All the emotions one feels somehow seem to work their way out and into the artwork. Dark days seem to produce dark and melancholic scenes or abstractions. Lively, exciting days filter into paintings full of energy and colour. It can work the other way too. If I give myself a lively exercise, perhaps using bright colours and restricting time as well as palette, I can sometimes pull the emotions away from the dismal to the joyful. It is always useful to keep some exercises to hand for such times. This is where a pin board comes in useful. Or a large whiteboard that can be wiped clean and changed on a regular basis. I miss my very large whiteboard from my studio in Suffolk. Too large to bring back up to Scotland in 2014 so it got left behind.
I still use ‘warm-up’ exercises though when inspiration or mood gets low. Yesterday I came across an article (an email one from InsideArt) that had six exercises worth keeping around. I’ve printed it out for experimenting with over these next few weeks. I also have a fairly large collection of art books and dvd’s I dip into every now and again. These books will need to be packed away soon for moving and will become unavailable for a few weeks. It is rather unsettling not having an access date for the new unit. Especially as time for exiting the Coupar Angus Studio approaches. Exciting but unsettling few weeks ahead. An exercise or two is just what I need if I am to keep the creativity flowing.
The first exercise (by Christopher Volpe) from the InsideArt article is:
1. Print out an image of something you want to paint, do the painting with the image and your painting upside down. Painting upside down helps you paint what you actually see, not what you think is there. It allows you to see drawing, proportion and value errors much more easily too.
I’ve chosen my image this morning, a simple one to begin with. It is an image taken by my friend Cathy Cuthbert of a Blue Tit Baby in a nesting box. I have Cathy’s permission to use this photograph as reference material. So important that an artist gets permission before using someone else’s photographs. But that is another pointer to go over another time. Perhaps I will do several versions of this exercise, progressing to more complicated images. I have some of my own landscape photographs that I’d like to experiment with. And on that note I need to get on with the day …..
