Take a breath...

Three days ago I bounced into my day all ready to start a new group of paintings.  Then I looked around - the easel was surrounded by 4 large 4ft x 2ft recently completed paintings, several smaller pieces,  and my palette was so coated in paint that the knives were sinking into it.

Upstairs there was more of the same. The watercolour table was buried under the detritus of my latest efforts, torn bits of paper, left over mixed paint glued to the glass surface, dried out pieces of kitchen paper that had been used for blotting, and countless pastel sticks







Even the computer table was shoulder deep in paper.

No place to work.




 I cant work if I am in a muddle, so I collected together the finished pieces done over the last 3 months and sorted them into groups and hung them in the outside studio.

Sorted all the waste paper out of my upstairs room - I can now see the computer table (its wood effect) and will be able to start work on the watercolours
Hmm quite pleased with myself. (end of day one).

I put the sealing ground onto the boards that I want to use next  (lovely magenta pink) and left them to dry in the barn.  Then I cleaned all the brushes, knives and palette. (end of day 2).

Day 3 - started work on the first of the new big paintings  - this is going to be based on the apocalyptic skies we have had during this autumn. Lovely dark clouds and the late afternoon sun squeaking through rent skies to throw its gold around.




Yes, I know this has a lot of pink, but we are only at the underpainting stage and the pink will add warmth to the yellows and blues and stop the finished image from being too cold.


Really excited about this, need to work through some more ideas in watercolour,  to see how the final colour layers will work.

Anyway with my now tidy work spaces, and the frames for the big oils have just arrived, I should be able to crack on for a couple more weeks.