The begining of this month was all about completing the work I began in the middlle of last month, up- dating and creating lots of 'techie' stuff.
The main focus was on building a new website, which is a big piece of work for someone for whom this doesn't come naturally, but a work in progress, learning how to link all the social media to it as well. That took up a lot of my brain band width, but it's out there now and those tasks have been ticked off my things to do list. I can now take a deep breath and let it go, it's all out there in the world, all I have to do is tweak and update when I've got something to add. Originally I used a company to build an art website for me, but the platform they used was really tricky to work with, making it almost impossible to pop on and update it. So I took the plunge and after lots of procrastination, here we are.
Now it's time for some blue sky thinking about creating my next body of work, and what do I want it to show?
what sort of colour palette?
what size of work, will it be small, or super large?
what substrate to use, paper, boards or canvas?
perhaps sketchbooks?
what medium, acrylics, oil, collage, ink, pastels?
So many possibilities: which is why with the benefit of hindsite, I now tend to use sketchbooks and journaling to work through some ideas, before committing to a course of exploration. I say hindsite, because as we all know it's a beautiful thing! Previously I'd have begun on a piece of work, then having seen something else that appealed to me went off on a tangent, getting totally mired and losing site in where I was going with the studio work, getting frustrated that things were not coming together. Hardly surprising!
All these bright ideas are exciting, it's important that they keep coming, it's all part of being a creative person. But learning how to control that and realising that all your brilliant ideas don't all have to show up in one place is totally fine. Sketchbooks are a way of doing that, a repository for good ideas, where you can revisit when the time is right.
Therefore in true Blue Peter fashion, here is one I made earlier - a sketchbook that is:
I made this concertina sketchbook out of some #Fabriano water colour paper that I happened to have and made the cover from an acrylic painting on paper that I wasn't crazy about and didn't mind sacrificing. I 've only done a little bit of experimentation in this with this type of sketchbook so far.
I know some people love working in concertina sketchbooks, but as yet I'm undecided. Perhaps it comes into it's own when it's taken on a plein air trip? Next time I go back up onto Dartmoor, I'll remember to take it with me.
However, these little sweeties arrived in the post yesterday!
I think I mentioned in my last post, that I currently have a bit of a 'thing' going for working on square substrates! So these small square sketchbooks fit the bill and are just divine. Obviously I couldn't just buy one. After all when it comes to art materials 'more is definitely more'.
I have a plan for these, although it may not materialise, but my thinking is that I would like to use one of them to further explore working with inks and collage.
I recently completed some small work on paper using inks, collage and paint in a limited palette, pop over to my website and have a look.I'd like to push that idea on a bit further and see where it goes. I'll post my progress on instagram #lynnbrookesart.com
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