tough love

this past weekend 

i took part in Dee Donaldson's 3 day drawing workshop. 

it has taken me a while to gather myself and my thoughts since...

i'm not sure i can put words to it yet but i will give it a try: 

it was amazing, tough, exhausting and enlightening. 

i have never done anything creative or related to art harder than this. 

Dee wasn't asking for pretty drawings with nice shading.

she wanted a rawness, gut responses, she wanted us to dig deeper, to play, 

to rely on sensation rather than thoughts. 

and that was so hard... i wrestled with myself a lot of the time; 

with the conditioned parts of me who wanted to make a pretty but emotionless drawing, 

with the part of me that wanted to do it "right", 

the part of me that wanted to know what was "expected of me". 

my head and thoughts struggled to let go of what i "should" be drawing 

but here and there in the course i had little glimpses of what it is 

like to "respond from my gut", to let it come up from deep inside of me. 

the drawings i share here are the ones where i feel i dropped deeper and trusted that 

i could respond... such an incredible, fleeting feeling. 

i feel that these three days have rocked my arting world 

and will bring many changes to my practice. 

i feel the need to go inward,  to dig deep to hopefully discover what my creative voice really, really

looks like. 

i feel as if i'm standing at a doorway not sure of what is coming just yet. 

experimenting

i love all these accidental marks. 

working with them brings me such inspiration. 

the unpredictability of the ink takes me to places i would never have discovered.

on my easel

at the end of last week i hit a wall with my big painting , 

i know it's not finished but i do not know what my next step is. 

so this weekend i decided to take a break and do something else. 

i stood at my easel and played with marks, 

ink, charcoal, pastel... 

i made pages and pages of those little faces, 

some good, some mad.

i'll share some more in the next few days. 

afternoon light

the afternoon light was irresistible in my studio.

i've been working with ink and bamboo sticks, 

quick drawing practices. 

many bad ones and a few interesting ones in between, 

which is what i am looking for... some interesting, unexpected traits i can 

use later in my paintings. 

update...

remember my wild bunch paintings from earlier this year? 

they were part of a group exhibition at the Loading Bay in Durban. 

well... it is a little "cringy" for my ego to admit but none of them sold... 

so i took them back home and left them in the garage for a few months.

i unpacked them and had a good honest look at them yesterday, 

and i do like them, they felt alive and wild. 

it was good to see them with fresh eyes again. 

i'm not sure why they didn't sell, i could come up with many reasons

and excuses but that wouldn't make a difference. 

of course it has been a great learning experience, 

 and i learnt a few good lessons along the way. 

one of them being: "don't take it personally, it is what it is, 

get back up and keep going, keep showing up, keep doing what you love."

oh and i keep repeating to myself, just like on the opening night... 

Brene Brown's mantra: "don't shrink, don't puff up, just stand your sacred ground."

now that i've cleared the air ;) 

i have put my bouquets in my Etsy shop, it's all pretty and updated. 

(PS: my feeling is that they were priced a little too high at the exhibition, so i reduced the prices slightly) 

Picasso immersed

how lucky was i?

this Picasso exhibition had just started at the

"Fondation Pierre Gianadda" when i arrived in Switzerland. 

it is 40km from where my family lives, 

i couldn't miss it! 

L'oeuvre ultime, hommage a Jacqueline

i was so incredibly moved to be in a place with so many 

Picasso original paintings, ceramics, etchings and sculptures, 

i did the best i could to soak it all up. 

and since then i've been immersed in everything Picasso! 

i've watched this documentary:

and i'm busy reading this book:

i love that he just created and created like a mad man, 

it feels like he was trying to materialise into art all the ideas he 

had in his head and heart. 

he had so much to express and not enough time... 

it feels like he just went for it without being too concerned 

whether anyone would like it or not. 

in fact after his death they found thousands of artworks

that no one had ever seen before... 

i find all that so, so fascinating! 

bzzzz...

i'm still experimenting with my drawing, 

i will be for a long time. 

here is the beginning of what is meant to be a bumble bee

more like a fly in the first attempt... 

more of a bumble bee this time

i am loving drawing something else than a face, 

somehow i feel freer doing it, 

not as compelled to put in all the details.

learning

it seems i can finally call these two paintings done! 

i have been working on them for a long time,

they are oil on board so they do take a long time to dry 

but also i've been experimenting with a lot of different layers 

and techniques on them. 

not my usual way to work but i have loved experimenting, 

learning new things and most of all, 

staying with it, as uncomfortable as it was at times... 

it's been a fantastic practice and i hope i can take a lot 

of what i've learnt forward into my next paintings. 

sunday practice

on my easel. 

getting slightly looser but not yet... 

back at it...

i'm still drawing...

doing the same exercises. 

30 seconds quick drawings, 

than 1 minute to 5 minutes. 

below are some quick 30 seconds faces

and then i went to 20 minutes drawings. 

the idea is not to add more but rather to focus on certain area of the face,

 to say more with less... 

as much as i understand the concept intellectually 

i can't seem to put it into practice... 

i get going with the drawing and soon get completely caught up in 

adding ALL the details as oppose to editing, which is really what 

i would love to do! 

so it's back to the drawing board as they say... 

oh and below it's Picasso turned Pope Jean-Paul II :) 

weiiiiiird!!!

at the drawing board...

i bunked art this morning... 

i just felt like spending time in my own studio.

when i told Dee i wasn't coming in she told me to make it count ;) 

so i did! 

i spent the morning doing drawing practice, 

drawing, after drawing, after drawing. 

quick sketches then slightly longer ones. 

it was tough, 

but hey... only practice will make progress no? 

staying with it...

last week i nearly lost patience with these paintings.

they had just become too messy and chaotic for my liking,

i was getting impatient and i couldn't see any resolution anymore.

until Dee gave me her expert advice and gentle guidance, 

she said they needed some "breathing space", 

 an area where the eye can rest and that could do that with flattening 

some parts of the painting. 

below you can see,  i did just that, i flattened the sky

and suddenly the painting works! 

for this one below i flattened the lower part at first 

and then some of the sky too

and these moment, i believe, are the reason why we paint! 

or at least why i paint... chasing this euphoric moment

when the painting i've been sweating on eventually falls into place, 

it is the best feeling! 

i don't think they are finished yet, 

they need a few more details. 

but i am so pleased that Dee kept me going, 

didn't allow me to give up or run away

(which i tend to do) 

but rather stay with the messy middle...

very uncomfortable messy middle! 

just like in life isn't it? 

there are the highs and the lows and the sometimes boring and mundane messy middles... 

but oh so important for growth. 

experimenting...

pollution

i'm experimenting with these, 

they are oils on boards. 

above is where i started, 

below is where i am now. 

exploring different marks, techniques and tools. 

having no idea where i'm headed but going with it. 

flooooowers...

i am knee deep in painting lots of wild bunches...

trying to finish them this week. 

a few details for now, 

more soon! 

this week

i've kept on going with my hand studies this week 

but mostly what i've been immersed in, is flower making ;) 

many different stages shown here, still a long way to go with 

all of them.