June art adventures - Painting.

I'm quiet at the moment. I have a lot to think about. However so far this month ( all 7 days of it) have been creative. I painted again from life for the first time in ages and I've been sketching and painting decorative elements for a wrapping paper design I am working on. I miss painting from life, it's just difficult to fit everything in isn't it?!.However I love to create work like this above too and I can envision a whole collection of ink drawings that could turn into cards and wrapping paper, even a print or two. We will see.

A few work in progress shots and the finished thing..

What I've learned doing this is that I have to be brave enough to stop earlier than perhaps I did. I still like the end result but I love the abstraction of the early stages. Like all art making it will take practice to develop the surety and confidence to know when I've achieved what I set out to. I studied illustration at art college, not painting and I remember that in my sketchbook I'd always loose shapes, the way light fell on the subject, drawing with colour rather than line but they'd be quite delicate watercolour and one of my tutors said "if only you'd work them up a bit more", I know what he meant ( they would have been too pale for print) but perhaps I've got this idea that I need to make things strong and realistic subconciously. As I became a professional illustrator my work moved from watercolour to thicker acrylic and I think what I love most is somewhere in between!

You can only discover by doing. Since writing this I have tweaked it a tiny bit am happy to leave it as you see in the above picture ( which isn't the best quality) but I do like the final painting.