A busy month

April has been a busy month – not necessarily for painting! Another grandchild has arrived – Sam, and plenty of house jobs over the Easter period put creative output on hold a bit.
Quite often while I am away from physical painting, ‘mental painting’ takes over and this is how I have used the time this month. Early in the month I had a mentoring session with Michael Kirkbride and discussed the objectives for my paintings. During the session Michael suggested that there was a certain ambiguity in most of the work I have done so far. There was often a literal interpretation of the painted scene interwoven with an underlying more ‘graphic’ representation of shapes, boundaries, and colour. Indeed, in a series of small watercolour sketches I have done recently I have been consciously exploiting these properties by simplifying the structure of woodland scenes into narrow strips and linear forms. Doing these sketches has also allowed some research into the nature of drawn lines and how they emphasise or detract from the structure of a painting. I feel that I am really treading on new ground here, and if I can consistently capture a sense of spontaneity with drawn lines and compliment them with a quality of painted marks and brushstrokes, I may exploit this quality of ambiguity more in my future paintings.
My objective at the end of April was to submit some new work for the Hertford Open Exhibition. I managed to enter three paintings of recent woodland scenes featuring leafless trees and carpeted paths in the wooded park where I take my dog to every day. As the entry is open to all comers, there is a tight selection process and I am glad to report that one of the works was selected for showing ( and hopefully might be sold!) At these exhibitions I take the opportunity to compare my painting with other similar work from artists, a fascinating exercise, and usually one that often inspires a few ideas.
So here is the painting that was selected (it will go in the gallery later) and you will see that I have painted it as a diptych on 2 panels which were joined and mounted in a larger frame.

Also two of the latest paint sketches to show you this new direction that I hope to be developing. Please feel free to comment back to me – you can do this by following the link ‘Post your thoughts’ below or go to the contact page – I would love to hear from you!!!