SUNDAY SESSION and the process.

My weekend has opened up to be completely free, which normally would depress me a little but this weekend it's fine. I've been on deadline all month with my book for my publisher, doing this kind of work....

...so as an antidote I'm in the studio producing in response to this, this kind of work....I'm really enjoying the relationship happening between the colours I'm using. I really love the watercolours and when I get some spare cash will splash out on some more substantial paints.

Samuel Bassett 'Torn Anima' - Artist Interview Film from Millennium on Vimeo.

 My friend Sam Bassett is a huge inspiration to me (insert Sam's embarrassed laugh here : ) and by getting to know him more in the latter part of my MA, and by looking at this more recent video for his new show at the Millenium ( above), his work and his process reiterates to me how important it is to create marks that come from the very depths of ourselves. An honesty that doesn't appear in our everyday lives, but only in that relationship an artist has in his or her studio, with the tools and canvases they choose to use at that time.

 I recently bought some sample books that I had seen fellow students use on the course and thought it would be exciting to buy them and fill them when I had the inspiration. It was Sam's watercolour nudes and the work of Daniel Egneus, that inspired me to get my watercolours out.

Mine are no way anywhere near the standard of his, but they excite me in their texture and colour palette. I didn't know how they were going to look or turn out which is always the best way for me. I had previously drawn in this book with twee little drawings of my favourite things that didn't work at all. It felt good to destroy them by painting and drawing over them and just letting the paint rule the way. I used a Duane Michaels book for reference and by doing these it has reiterated further that I have to work from reality. From photographs or real life. My favourite reference is scenarios with people or animals in them, a form of life and movement. Something I should start to do now that I am getting to grips with the way I work. I should also get off the computer and just get on with it and do loads more, but it excites me posting my learnings from the work I do, for all three of my audience to read!

Today, it is so much more apparent that my practice spins on the ying and yang of my personality. I need the scruffy, unpredictable and ruptured mess of my sketchbooks as much as I need the trinket style keepsakes that I create. They each inform the other and without that contrast I'm not sure I would be as happy as I am now. The realisation of the importance of that relationship makes me really happy and gives me permission to be the artist I have always wanted to be, feeling the need to create rather than wanting to produce pretty pictures for others. The sketchbooks are me screaming out for freedom and I believe show my true inner workings, more than my more considered creations. Enough now, back to it!