I got a nice big delivery of art supplies yesterday from
Dick Blick, so I was really excited to try out my new canvas panels for these studies. I also ordered to big roll of canvas and some 60" stretcher bars, so that should keep me busy for a while!
This is a painting I've had in mind for a long time, and has a lot of meaning besides the subject for me. Most things I paint end up having some kind of personal metaphor embedded in them, whether or not I realise it at the time I paint it.
Sometimes I have to sit back after I've finished a big painting, exhausted, and just stare for hours at it. I'm becoming familiar with it, which I know sounds weird because I might have just spent a few weeks being obsessed with it while I'm structuring ideas, making drawings, stretching canvas or preparing a panel, and then actually painting it.
Sometimes it feels like someone else painted it, and I just came along at the end and decided on a title. I think that's when I know I've really allowed something subconscious to drive a piece, and so the emotion can be somewhat raw and challenging. I used to be fairly spiritual, and imagined that someone was channelling though me in some way. I don't feel that way any more. I know it all comes from me, from my experience, from my body, and my mind. It's not always an easy thing to accept.
The Earring
