First painting for 2013...

I've been doing my usual trick, painting in my head instead of on paper or canvas.  It's fine for a while, tossing ideas around, mentally turning things around about to see how they look from different angles, or in different styles/media.  But ultimately there's no substitute for getting down to business and starting.  Because it's only then that the real magic starts, new ideas/directions appear, paths to take that you might never have discovered if you just kept going over the same ground in your head.  But still, I keep doing it and then find that actually starting gets harder and harder.  I have a little exhibition booked for late April, and though I have some work, I need to do more for it.  So I've been turning my brain in knots thinking about all manner of overly ambitious and complex possibilities, when there really isn't time for that, and what I really need to do it just get started on something, anything really, to start the year off and get back into the creative flow.  So today I stopped thinking and started doing.  This is the result.  Titania.  With gum (Eucalypt) leaves!  Acrylic, graphite and pencil on 20cm x 20cm canvas.  Though I don't think she's quite finished yet.  I might add a quote from the play down the side.

I recently saw another production of Midsummer Night's Dream that was rather lovely.  I've lost count of how many I've seen over the years, I think it's my favourite of Shakespeare's plays.  One of the most memorable was way back in 1990, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson's Renaissance Theatre production in London.  Wonderful stuff!  So I think there will be a Puck (though of course, the Green Jack is another version of Puck), and possibly an Oberon too.

And for an excellent blog post on the need to stop thinking about painting, or writing, or whatever, and get on to doing, check out Terri Windling's latest blog post On Beginnings.