Hope Seeps Through

10 March 2019

Week Six

The experiments continued. Painting on canvas, this time working larger, 80 x 80cm up to 120 x 120cm. I was eager to work larger. I had been working on my lap or a table previously, which is quite unusual for me, I usually prefer working at an easel, but these paintings required laying flat. This has limited the number of paintings I can layer at the same time. As a result all of these first paintings only had one layer because of the pressure of waiting for the oils to dry and them taking up all my floor and table space!

This term started with some devastating news which is taking some time to get my head around. I have managed to keep myself together while everything around me seemed to be melting. For the first time I was able to achieve a reasoned approach to startling news. My work is carrying me through, just as it has brought me out of the darkness in the past. These paintings are about just that, I see much anguish in my work, but an overriding hope seeps through.

This week continued with quite a few other paintings. I managed to break through the fear of working into the paintings by choosing one of my favourite ones and doing a complete layer of white over it and working it again. The result was fairly muddy so I waited for it to dry before touching up the highlights.

I ended up with something very different from the start but understood there was a lot more to discover with layers, particularly intersecting lines and textures in the layers.