I did my first ever painting demonstration at Panter and Hall on Thursday. Very difficult, and very exposing- I really discovered just how little I knew, or at least was able to say, about painting, although this will come as no surprise to some!
I suppose I am quite instinctive as an artist, and enjoy making marks, and building up the sense of space, and I have been doing it for quite a long time, so that many of the processes are really embedded now, and I hardly think about them. Doing a demo forces you to articulate (I was trying to talk my way through the stages of an oil painting whilst actually doing it) what you are attempting to achieve. As one person said afterwards, the talking bit and the doing bit use different sides of the brain. No wonder it hurt so much.
I am doing another one on Thursday this week, at 1.15pm, so do come along, and see the raw unedited side of making a picture. I very much wanted to do these demos as a way of countering the finished, these-are-all-products-on-the-wall type of feeling one has about a show. And also, after the fun of the private view it’s nice to have something to look forward to. Although, having been put on the spot about vanishing points and what ground I prefer, I am not sure I really am looking forward to Thursday as much as I could be.
On similar lines, I am featured in the November 2014 issue of Artists and Illustrators magazine- buy your copy now and see a stage by stage account of me painting the ‘Rhododendrons in the Dell’ painting that features in my show.
