Beneath the Skin : Sketchbook Paintings

Some of my earliest memories are of being in my own little world, painting or drawing something, anything. It got me into trouble when I was 6 years old because I drew over all the clock faces at primary school when I should have been learning to tell the time. Let’s just say, my clock faces had way more than 2 hands as I was more interested in using the circles as a starting point for drawings than learning about time. My teacher’s harsh words did not deter me, in fact I couldn’t understand why she didn’t think mine were the coolest - everyone else’s were the same! As a teenager, I was eager to learn more. I would walk for an hour on my own each week to go to a life drawing class in the evening at my local college, in addition to the A level in Art I was taking at school. Luckily, on my degree, the life models came to us and I continued to enjoy painting and drawing as part of the curriculum.

Although I now work with clay, the 2D work has remained as a key part of my practice, even though I don’t often share what I’ve been up to with it. In the past I have exhibited and sold my paintings but recently I have been very focussed on making sculptures and using the activity of painting as part of the process in developing the ideas for those.

I thought you might like to have a peek at a few pages in my sketchbook.

I enjoy creating depth in the painting by using layers on top of one another. I layer gestural marks with colour blocks & grids. If you look long enough, you’ll see a face in the background of each. These are explorations for my ‘Beneath the Skin’ project (I’ll put a link at the bottom). It. is a way for me to explore my themes in a different medium which encourages an alternative perspective and way of working. The language of painting is different to making ceramics, the process is different. It somehow feels freer as there are no firings and worrying about cracks or warping. It is in front of you all of the time and you can react to it immediately.

I am taking inspiration from the Abstract Expressionist movement, in particular Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan and Gertrude Green. I am thoroughly enjoying exploring my themes in paint while simultaneously developing the sculptures. The two are currently very different in appearance and I’m okay with that (The paintings are definitely punching some colour at the moment). They may eventually meet in the middle but they may not. It’s early days and part of the idea is to go with the flow. Accept the not knowing. One feeds into the other to some extent as I delve deeper into the themes and gain clarity in my thoughts of how to go forward with my Beneath the Surface project. There is no time scale on this work as it is a personal project which I wanted to undertake in order to broaden my thinking and develop myself as an artist. It’s proving to be fun!

Links to previous posts about Beneath the Skin :

Beneath the Skin - Project outline

Beneath the Skin : First Experiments