"Face The Breeze"
I am so excited to be starting my new series of abstract paintings. I was contacted by Little Van Gogh and they asked me if I would like to exhibit ten pieces in a touring exhibition. The exhibition will mostly be in corporate buildings, with large walls to fill. This means the pieces need to be large scale. Automatically I was excited as I have been wanting a reason to work bigger for a while. But because most of my paintings were under the size limit, I decided to start from scratch on a whole new series.
A large blank canvas and a work in progress.
So how do you go about starting a new series? First I decided that I wanted a square format. This is for many reasons, one being that I like it aesthetically and I find my compositions work better. Another reason which is secondary but still valid, is that I use instagram which has a square format. Any images of my paintings are either cut off or include distractions around the edges in order to fit the whole painting in.
How do I choose canvas size? I knew it had to be large scale but I also know that my little studio can't handle ten canvases that are super sized. Of course the bigger the canvas the more expensive it is too. All things considered, for me the 80x80cm size made the most sense.
"Outside In Cuckooland".
And finally to the hard part. What will I paint? When starting a series it is important to choose a topic, style, colour palette or theme that you won't get bored of easily. The paintings must all look good together and be cohesive. I know this is something I will struggle with because I have so many ideas and things I want to try and express. Orchestrating a uniform thread is difficult. I have completed two of the paintings and already they are completely different to each other! I am hoping that the rest of the paintings will bridge the two together bringing in elements of both to disguise their apparent incompatibility. I am sure this is not how to go about this type of thing. It is a good exercise to reign me in. I will try to always work in series from now on in the hope I will get better at planning.
