I've had some good studio days recently. I've started several pieces of new work - although I think of them as a continuation of the work I was making last summer rather than truly "new". It feels good to be making again. A relief actually. Because, looking back, I feel as though I've been stuck for the last six months.
However I'm feeling clearer about what I want to do next. Which makes it easier to work out how I'm going to get there. I will need to spend some time experimenting and sampling to find ways to get the effects I want and, more uncomfortably, I think I need to let go of some of my favourite techniques for a while. They won't give me the look I am after and also I think I have got into too much of a routine with some of them - it's all a little too predictable.
Without giving much away, this is the list I've written in my sketchbook:
- edges: blurred, diffuse
- layered, textured
- aged, decaying, worn, eroded
- change
- merging and disappearing
- mist, fog, shorelines, reflections
It's a guide, not a prescription. We'll see where it leads.
In the meantime, some good advice I was given was to keep making my existing work while I develop the new. So there are five or six new pieces coming into shape on my studio wall. I am liking these muted colours very much.
