I now have a super bunch of 30 paintings that represent a journey from my first experimental steps towards a more looser, abstract form of representing the landscape.
My paintings have, more often than not, been a very representational moment in time. I have always, always, however, wanted to be able to paint my own feelings about a place, a sense of being in the moment, the atmosphere, the sounds, the light around me. I knew I needed to work differently, I knew it would take a lot of effort and time to approach a new way of painting for me. Which is why I set myself this challenge.
It was hard at first, although I was prepared with 30 compositions, it was unnerving to me to not paint every little detail, to use colours that I had only seen fleetingly, to try to represent atmosphere and feelings in a painting.
As the project continued on, though, I began to loosen up and by the end of week 2, I had begun to get a feel for what I was doing. During week 3 I turned a corner! I began to be able to manipulate the oil paints wet-in-wet with much more confidence and used that to my advantage rather than trying to fight it and a greater confidence grew in my compositions and the way the brush applied the paint.
Of course this new-found confidence was short-lived and I stumbled a few times nearer the end, which is quite often what happens when learning new things in art - there is an almost step back before the final push forward, I have seen it and experienced it often.
So here they are in date order, all 30 paintings, one for every day of June. All I can say is, thank goodness for the extended daylight hours we get at this time of the year!
