Short and sweet this week as I’ve been struggling a little to find both the time or the inspiration/motivation for painting. It’s. It’s familiar little slump that often follows a period of higher intensity activity as I experienced during May’s artists open houses.
One of the many advantages of having been painting so long now is the ability to recognise this phase for what it is, i.e. not a big deal, and also to have some strategies for how to keep going, even when you might not necessarily feel like it. One of my failsafes is my sketchbook.
Here’s a quick sketch based on a photograph that artist Laura Darling posted some time ago from one of her favourite walks:
This is a little A5 study where I was keen to find a shorthand way to convey bright yellow field of rapeseed flowers.
The nice thing about this kind of sketch is that it keeps you thinking and keeps the brushes moving without the focus being on the end product.