Wake Up Call
Wake up Call - 1m x 80cm
Why painting stripes proves so satisfying that it makes an appearance in two paintings and how the outside world filters into the studio in long days in August.
Some painters repeat areas of a painting into several paintings, I remember at college it was encouraged ‘incorporate elements of one painting into the next’. The reason for this was to forge alliances of techniques into several paintings and create a body of work. In my previous painting; Holiday Vibes I enjoyed having a recognisable stripe pattern so I incorporated it into my Wake Up Call. I cant really say why I enjoyed the stripes but it felt definitely satisfying. So repeating this enjoyable piece of a painting was perhaps like having another piece of chocolate.
So I have been talking a little about titles recently in my blog posts. The title of this piece was hanging in the background as I painted it and it is interesting to note a little about my day to day studio life.
A preoccupation of painting can be to keep external thoughts (other than painting) at bay. So circumstances such as world news inevitably filter in to my head when I am painting. Over the August period my thoughts have been busy with a lot of alarming news about climate change and the Amazon rain forest being on fire. I have been watching the progression of this news trickling in. It certainly has felt like a trickle of news as it has been posted on social media for a while. I wondered why it wasn’t headline news straight away and amazed that nothing very much seems to have been done which led me to think that the world is in a deeper state of slumber than I thought possible.
In my studio, many thousands of miles across the globe, these thoughts have been flitting in and out. I work in silence and find the radio or music distracting as painting is quite a demanding activity. Painting days are long, 10 until 6 sometimes and only a short break for lunch. The majority of painting is taken up with thousands of decisions, especially at the beginning of a new piece. As it all progresses I can relax a little.
Even in a quiet studio with just seagulls and birds for outside noise, it is not so easy to shut out the rest of the world and be in a tranquil space.