18 July 2014

a minimalist studio?

Watch this space!

I am trying to reduce clutter in my life. Those of you who know me well will be snorting with suppressed laughter at this point. But wait - there's progress.

This week I have taken five bags of goods to be recycled, given away a bag of clothes, hair accessories and make-up to a most appreciative recipient, thrown out chipped or cracked glassware, and tossed out some "might be useful one day" bits and pieces of unknown origin or purpose.

The ideal in the studio is to accept, once and for all, that I am a watercolourist, and reduce those tubes to the minimum too. But every so often you just need... (mixed media, oil, acrylic, pencils, crayons... you get "the picture". Sigh...).

As I finish tubes or pots of paints I no longer rush out to replace them. In the past I have found it impossible to buy "just one" tube or pot. I am easily seduced by colour and paper. Currently I am painting using odd colours, mixing many hues from very little. Increasingly paint companies whose products I knew, understood, and trusted are altering the composition of paints and I can no longer instinctively know how one will react with another. The chemistry of colour has been blurred, smudged, spoiled. Eventually my cupboards will have very few of each, and my life will be less cluttered, as will my head and my studio.

Hence the "purge" of partly painted canvases at the moment. And now, once I have given away a painting promised to someone who helped with professional advice for no charge, and made more coffee for the worker cutting the grass, back to finish the painting from yesterday with bold, dramatic and interesting decisions. (Did I hear "yeah, right!" in the back of my head? Be gone, doubter).

Today I am grateful for good news from NZ.


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