Sharing
January 12, 2013 in Inspiration, Painting notes, Watercolours
Those of you who read my blog regularly will know that one of the things I’m always doing is pushing to try new ideas. Sometimes it’s a new medium, sometimes just working on expressing a new idea. One of the best aspects of paintings is knowing that the learning never stops. I find that a high proportion of my inspiration and my learning comes from other artists. I make it a point to seek out and look at the blogs of new artists so every day new images appear in my feed. If you embrace it, the community of artists online can be a warm and generous place to hang out.
Light and shade (watercolour sketch)
This was an early failed attempt at portrait painting. It was done about 2 years ago and I’ve not gone back to doing portraits yet – but one day I will. This young lady gazes out from my studio pin board to remind me that one day I should have another go at painting faces.
In the meantime, I’d like to share the websites of a few of my newly discovered artists:
- I ‘ve followed Sue Nichols on Facebook and now on Twitter for some time now. Her love of the British coastline shines through her wonderful paintings. I can just about smell the salt air when I look at Sue’s paintings
- Haidee-Jo Summers is someone whose work I discovered fairly recently. She paints wonderful life scenes and works en plein air (something I still find challenging)
- Today I happened on the wonderful website of Paul Burgess via is twitter posting of his marvellous painting of curious cows (he calls them ‘nosey’)
For future reference, links to all these websites are not on my Artists page.
And finally a blog post for the watercolourists, Don Rankin posted this great piece about sketching en plein air today.
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I agree Vandy. I love looking at other people’s blogs. I make a point not to be too influenced, but instead to be inspired.
As for learning – well I believe that comes from making mistakes. So the more we make, the better Artists we become :0)
Blogging was the best thing I ever did. I’ve met some wonderful Artists through it, so willing to share information. It’s a warm place to be :0)
You’re quite right about making sure we’re not influenced unduly by other people’s blogs. It can be quite seductive to see a painting you love and want to recreate it. But I think the key for me is in looking at the ‘how’ as well as the what. How does the artist approach things? How was a particular technique performed. All fascinating stuff.
Thank you very much for your kind mention!
It’s an absolute pleasure. I have enjoyed reading your posts.
I hope it’s not too long before you get back to portraits. The lightness of touch and delicacy of colour is beautiful.
Thank you for sharing the new artists that you have discovered.
Thank you, Lisa. I think that is something I need to take time over and at the moment I’m going flat out in all the studio time I have as we’re preparing for an exhibition in about 6 weeks time. (Oh dear, is it really that soon?)
They have a habit of sneaking up on you ;0)
Dear Vandy – it is so nice you share and I agree it is great to have fellow artists who are willing to give of themselves. I know I always enjoy your lovely art and experiments. It keeps me inspired.
Thanks Debbie. I’m very pleased you find my constant experiments helpful. I am fairly analytical by nature and by virtue of my day job. So experimenting to work out what options I have with my materials is something that comes very naturally to me. I don’t really think I could paint without experimenting, and I really love sharing the results.