Well I started today by photographing a new painting in its frame, There Is Still Hope. I do think paintings online look much better in frames, it proves that these are real paintings not mere digital images.
Then I took a look at my old sketchbooks, looking for inspiration for the commission, or food for the eye to help the dream-like process of visualising. Here's an average page:
My sketchbook have always been more like ideas libraries. I've always made and stored far more ideas than I could paint, partly because when the ideas flow, it's good to keep them for later, perhaps for future years. The problem with that is that painting ideas can go out of date, and even meanings and feelings can no longer be as correct as they once were. I suppose one advantage to this though is that the best, most timeless ideas, will remain powerful.
After rediscovering a few paintings in there I became inspired and ached to paint them! Such a crime to have these lying there unseen in books, those sad children, locked away in the dark!
Just get them done, as quickly as possible, while they are still fresh, I thought. I often think I can spend more time agonising on why than it would take me to actually paint them. This is the way I used to work often; assemble 10 to 30 paintings, normally over winter, then paint them over the next summer. The problem is that the finished paintings tend to just lay there, unseen, and good as not there at all for most of the world, and we only have so much space (I don't know a single artist who isn't also the guardian of an art storage facility). Over time, I began to slow down, painting less, and only for specific reasons or events or contests.
Yet in art the best things are the often the things made for no rational purpose. It seems to be these that in the long term turn out to be the special works. It is perhaps that spark of joy, enthusiasm, and excitement of the new idea that is the eternal thing, and the key thing when making art. Nobody remembers Mozart for his unwritten music! And the goal of competitions etc. well, those are artificial anyway, and their purpose of enthusing us and supplying a deadline isn't important if we have our own passion.
So, I've grabbed a few ideas and will draw them out this week, with the aim of painting them as quickly as I can. Re-reading this blog has at least reminded me that I can paint much faster now compared to a few years ago. What is an artist to do but paint? In fact, what is an artist to paint but not what the world wants, but what his or her soul demands?
I've drawn out two today: The Safe Box, and Land of Beauty and Sorrow. Small, weird, meaty works that are (probably) about social media and the technological world. On we march.
