I’ve got news for you it’s now been another 4 months since I wrote about my lockdown news AND we’ve had another lockdown!  We had a rather sad time recently when we lost our beloved 14yr old lurcher, Lucy.  It’s a tough time to lose a pet, she had come to mean even more to me during this time of isolation. 

To keep motivated and excited in my studio I’ve been exploring my sketchbooks, something I have always found really difficult.  I’m not motivated to draw within the landscape, despite loving being outside.  Representation of beautiful scenery has never appealed so my books lay empty and unloved until recently.  With no exhibitions on the horizon it seemed a good time to push myself to explore new marks and tools, working towards something different and exciting to bring to my paintings. 

In making these two black and white studies I used a variety of media, a little home made collage, acrylic paint some drybrush marks, stubbies, ink, pencil and caron d’ache crayons. 

For the two pieces below I taped a piece of paper, previously covered with gesso, into small rectangles then painted the whole page ignoring the tape, before adding some drawn marks using the same dry media.  The exciting moment comes when we remove the tape to reveal the unexpected designs below.  Its so hit and miss we have no way to seeing what is happening until the reveal, there is always the possibility to edit these after to improve the composition. 

After making several of these studies, I spend time looking at them, deciding whether they need more work, before adding to my sketchbook. I often use these as starting points for further paintings, or perhaps take the colours, shapes or marks to add to later paintings when they need a little inspiration