Every year, I suppose probably around this time, I start inexplicably waking up at 6am.
I am a morning person generally, but something about Spring makes me absolutely unable to lie in bed any more. Last week I was happily lying in until half 8 - even 9 am (if my little boy would let me) but this morning, at half past 5, I was willing myself to fall back to sleep while my brain went in circles about this painting I wanted to do. At 6am I gave in and got up - and it was genuinely fucking great to have a few hours uninterrupted painting time before everyone else was up.
I had this sleepy hazy idea to draw a witchy lady vaguely inline with the Strength Card in Tarot. I wanted it to be a celebration of summer, and specifically August - my birthday month, school holiday month, lazy late summer in all it's deliciousness.
this is too big for my scanner
I haven't made any work I really love since January, which is coincidentally when I returned to work after maternity leave and started a masters course. It's been a lot.
On Monday I went through my portfolio with my mentor (Tijana Lukovic), and she gave me some great feedback, and some ideas for things to experiment with. They are maybe things that seem obvious to other people, but I have no formal art education so it was really great for me to hear. She suggested;
Getting new paints, choosing the colours that call to me instead of the primary set I have to help me make more interesting colour schemes that are recognisably mine.
Experimenting with moving away from hard outlining everything.
Considering light sources in my work.
I came away from the meeting really excited to get started, but then felt totally paralyzed. I didn't do anything at all for three days. How was I supposed to start a painting without doing outlines? That is my first step. Always. How was I supposed to suddenly incorporate light into my work? I've never done it before, I don't know how it works. I knew I was going to get it wrong.
first attempt at doing a light source - I think it will sell well in October
Then I bought the new paints. I couldn't not use them.
Something really exciting happened, and I discovered, I'm a much much better painter than I thought I was. I know how that sounds, but I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet. I know I still have a crazy crazy long way to go, and I can always always improve. What I mean is, I suddenly found that i could paint the shape I wanted to paint, without drawing it first. Magic! And so quick! Without outlines I was removing an entire two steps from my usual making process. I spat out three paintings in 24 hours, which is pretty much unheard of for me. A lot of my favourite illustrators paint without outlines and it was something I had actually been speaking about trying for the longest time - but I just didn't have the confidence for some reason. It shouldn't be so hard to just make the art I know I like.
My Spirit of August painting didn't quite come out like my lazy dreamy vision. In my head her face and torso took up the majority of the picture, and she wore a lions mane as a crown. Her dress was made of orange and red tartan and covered in all the plants you can forage in Scotland in August, and behind her, in a kind of halo were her tools and most loved objects. I'd still love to draw that woman, but the character I ended up drawing was softer and sweeter. She is still covered in her foraged goodies, and surrounded by sunflowers. If I'm keeping the tarot comparison I think she'd be a wonderful Queen of Pentacles, or perhaps a 7 of Pentacles if she lost the crown and got an extra sunflower.
A new anxiety? I don't know if this new style is recognisable as me yet. I don't know if it's cohesive with my other work. I've worked so hard over the past few months getting my portfolio together and up online, and it feels wrong to suddenly start doing things differently. Am I undoing everything I've been working so hard towards?
I'm trying to see it like the seasons. Winter is so long and so hard and it's easy to fall into easy cosy habits. Spring is time for change, and the Spirit of August woke me up to promise that Summer would be better.
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