Busy experimenting!

Sometimes I need a push, especially at the beginning of the year after Christmas and holidays and hot, uncreative weather, to get myself painting again.  I've always been the kind of slightly disorganised (or not so slightly!), procrastination-prone person who benefits from a deadline.  I may always end up bemoaning the fact that a tight schedule means I never quite reach the heights I was aiming for, but I'm also well aware that without a deadline I more often than not never even get started, and my great ideas stay just that...ideas that never get fleshed out, never become real.  So, to get this years' ball rolling, I did something I quite often do...entered an Art competition BEFORE I'd painted the piece I'd entered.  This was a little different, as the piece was partly done, a landscape that I did a couple years ago, having great fun playing around creating the stormy sky and ominous clouds, but it just didn't stand on its own.  So I tossed the idea of adding a figure around for a bit, then thought maybe a spot of collage might be interesting to experiment with...and thought of a name...and put in my entry form!  Right, now I have to paint it!  Hmmm, and of course, having put it down as a 'mixed media' piece, I can't just paint, so that vague collage idea is going to have to be utilized even if I have no idea if it will even work or not.  So...this is what I've been working on for the last week!  It's called 'Storm Spirit Moving'.

Figure pencilled in and face and arms painted, basic hair put in.  As the landscape painting had a spray gloss varnish on it, it's hard to get a good photo without white shine patches!  The painting is quite large, about 1m x 1m, and I haven't done one that big for some time, so it felt good to be back at the easel upstairs in my little studio!  Stayed like this for a few days because I was having serious doubts about whether my collage idea would work.

OK, I finally committed to the collage idea...I think it's working OK, but the plan is to go over it with some delicate white pen-and-ink patterns, like a kind of lacework.

Finished!  Well, as finished as it's going to get, as I had to take it in today.  

I always spend too much time trying to plan things out it my head before committing pen to paper (or canvas), but I still get excited when things occur along the way that I hadn't thought of.  The white pen-and-ink patterns started to remind me a little of some of the patterns in the Nazca Desert in Peru...and then I started thinking they were like some kind of ancient celestial maps of constellations, which I thought was highly appropriate...and then I realised they also reminded me of crop circles!  They're essentially just doodles, no real thought and definitely no planning or designing gone into them, so I quite liked that idea.  I need to stop thinking about my work so much BEFORE I start it, and just start and see what happens, allowing myself to have fun along the way.  If I stop worrying so much about what might go wrong, I might discover some really interesting things!