A beautiful uphill climb

So much has happened in the 5 months since my last blog post. I mean it's no excuse for not writing a blog entry but I have been super busy. For a start, I moved house. It's been a fantastic move and life couldn't be better but moving house really does suck up a good few months of your life, no to mention your energy. As a result of the house move though, Ive managed to acquire my very own art 'studio'! When I say studio, I mean an 8X8 foot shed in the garden. I totally love it.

The 'Studio'

Its a great little space to paint, learn and plan my next moves.

Remember in my last blog post I was getting a little lost in direction, feeling like I played a hand too early in what sort of art I want to focus on. I started with horses and then felt like perhaps I'd like to go in another direction. I think I'm guilty of perhaps getting a little over-excited. You see my passion to make a living from painting drove me in a direction where I was trying to think commercially way too early. It's interesting because I kind of knew at the time that I was being a little impatient. As a father with responsibilities and needing to bring in a certain amount of money a month, I did need to think commercially - but then as a person learning a craft, a skill that takes most professional artists a life-time to master (and they're reticent to even use that term!), I was being way too over-enthusiastic. Painting, I realise is a mighty onion with many many layers of skill and wisdom. You need to be absolutely brilliant to catch people's eye enough for them to want to invest in the work you're producing. I mean, ask yourself - would you buy an oil painting? It would probably be a rare thing and it would have to totally knock your block off for you to pay a couple of hundred quid for it - or even a hundred quid. I came to realise that among the people I know, literally no-one has oil paintings in their house. They may have a few watercolours, they may have a few prints even -but a full on oil painting?

So commercially, the cards are a bit stacked against painters, especially average painters. The simple logic of 'I'll paint some paintings and people will buy them and I'll quit my job' soon falls apart when you face the reality that it's not an essential item in most people's lives and you need to totally stand out to get people's attention in this crazy world.

So despite the house move, working to pay the mortgage and the regular domestic chores and responsibilities, I've been using every spare hour to improve my knowledge and skills. I'm still navigating my journey, learning what I like in other people's art and discovering what I want to produce. I still love painting in pastels, creating portrait commissions of lovely dogs. I was honoured to be asked to paint a friend's dog after they had passed away. To me that's really special.

Daisy

I've been focussing on the basics - line, tone and colour. I can see the improvement. Obviously there's some terrible drawings, awful paintings and bin-fodder but overall there's improvement. I'm working on my oil painting techniques, listening to the wisdom of much better painters in podcasts and pushing myself forward. It's an upward trajectory.

My own dog 'Jasper' painted in oil

'Family'. A painting for our new house

Another new and exciting development is that I'll be giving my first workshop in a couple of days. I'm fluent in British Sign Language and a couple of my Deaf friends have been asking if I do classes. I hadn't thought about it before but if you're Deaf and a budding artist, then getting access to the theory and techniques of drawing and painting is virtually impossible. I mean, I know I'm still earning myself but I have picked up a ton of information, enough to get someone started on this beautiful journey. So I'm delivering a Charcoal Portrait Workshop in British Sign Language (BSL) to a group of lovely Deaf ladies in Bristol. I'm so excited about it and I hope I can help them get the ball rolling so they follow me down the same rabbit hole.

I've also started filming and editing an 'Introduction to Oil painting' in BSL which I'll add to my website when its ready.

I've also been seriously focussed on portraits. It's a mighty mountain to climb because I think it must be one of the toughest styles of painting to undertake. Trying to get a likeness is like hitting a bullseye every time you throw a dart. Sometimes you miss wildly and sometimes you get close but only with hundreds of hours of practice can you hope to become any good. The secret, I understand is on heavy practice in drawing the human face. Once you're pretty good at that then you need to put hundreds of hours into trying to get a likeness in paint. It's a mountain worthy of climbing though. I think I'm somewhere in the car park at the moment!

So in essence, despite my silence on this blog, I've been very busy.

'Captive'

The uphill climbing continues but it's a beautiful climb with amazing views. Keep an eye out for my facebook posts and until next time!