In The Zone

It's 9.30am, and I'm in the zone. Two paintings completed, and I wasn't especially early to rise (I never am...there are larks, there are owls, and then there's me...I sleep, therefore I am). When I say completed, I don't mean, from start to finish in one fell swoop... though I do paint like that, sometimes. These had been underpainted, thought about and left aside for a good month or so. Today felt like the day to finish them. This is a coffee break, and I've got another on the easel saying, my turn, my turn...so it ain't done til the fat lady says so.

And just as I wrote that, my son called to ask me something or other, and said, oh, Speed Painting. No, I said. Not really. I may not spend huge amounts of time applying paint to canvas, but there's a lot going on in my head, pretty much all the time, which has to do with the paintings. Standing in front of the canvas is just the end result. But I did like the idea of Speed Painting.

What I particularly love about the painting, and art work in general, is being able to see a progression. What started this particular progression is the painting above, 'One Fell Swoop'. It somehow felt different to a lot of the paintings I've made recently. Different palette, certainly, slightly different techniques...above all, more space than is usual in my paintings, that are usually crowded with mark and colour. The two I've made today don't both follow that trend, but one of them definitely does. Photos tomorrow, perhaps.

But when I stand back and look, I can see the journey from the earliest paintings through to these current pieces. Some of the themes endure...a type of mark, a palette. Others are long gone, visited and abandoned. But all of them had their part to play in my development, and the development of the art. And for that, I'm truly grateful.