But first I want to say thank you for the lovely comments & emails I've had for my new website thank you!! Really pleased.
It's funny how things I set for my students often help me in different ways. I have started planning for the next term of work for them - looking at simplifying, paint aplication, tonal shapes...without fussing with detail too quickly.
What you do is draw out 8 boxes 2.5-3" square and then do a mini painting in each no longer than 10 minutes! It's tough, because it's still a propper painting with all the same elements involved.
For me it's helping to really hone my observation skills and translating it quickly onto a 2D surface. I want to speed up the time it takes to do a painting outside and this is an excellent way of practising for that. The idea I developed from Carol Marines Daily Painting book.
There is no time for procrastination of the hard areas, no time for day dreaming or being distracted! Just pure focus and a determined mark making, really helpful. I hope my students will find it useful too.
I did the apples first experimenting with moving it around, and as it's small there's no loss in messing up a big investment of a painting to try things out. I worked on paint application thick and thin, especially numbers 6 & 7. You can see how much I improved from the beginning to the end. Painting the apple once and then doing it again it's surprising how much you remember and do it more quickly, like learning the subject by doing a sketch before you start painting. If I changed the set up a little like turning the apple around, it slowed me down again.
I then tried a cermic pot, which was harder, I liked the apple shape better but the colour of the pot was nice! Also did it a bit bigger 3" square and 12 minutes long.
I entered the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) Open Exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London and have been selected for the first round! I have to take the painting below in January and they will decide if it makes it into the exhibtion. All things crossed :-)
