Getting Unstuck in my Work

[Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hi and happy friday so there's this thing which happens sometimes when i've had a good few painting sessions when things have started to move well and that is that i get frozen because i come in and i look at what i've got and i know it's not finished yet i know it's not enough somebody asked me what's the difference between something which is just a series of drips and effects and something which is a painting and you're of course not at the point of worrying about that yet because we're in the process of finding out who you are and what kind of paint effects you want to make and how you want to handle paint i'm a little bit further up that path now and i am to the point of making finished paintings and so my answer to that question is that it's it's when a series of decisions have been made with intention then i feel it's a painting so uh that one that you've seen me working on that is currently a series of effects but i'm on my path with an intention so i'll start making some more decisions on that then it'll move forward however sometimes when they're at that effect stage they get to this point where i like them and i can feel frozen about approaching them again and that happened a few days after working on the grey one so i came in here but i just couldn't face doing anything to it and i've learned to respect that and to not force myself to do things i don't want to do on the other hand that doesn't mean going and sitting in a chair and watching television this was my painting time and i wanted to use it productively but not to force myself creatively to do something that my intuition my soul whatever you want to call it was not ready for so this little video is about what i did instead and i hope it's inspirational in the sense that i hope you can see this idea of trusting ourselves and doing what feels good applies to our process as well as to the actual work so listening for the intuitive feeling that now's the time to go for it on that big painting now's the time not to and then finding something else productive and interesting and fun to do instead and that keeps the painting process light and uh well it keeps it joyful because in the end this turned into a really good painting day for me as you'll see but not in the way i maybe anticipated when i woke up that morning so let me show you what happened i'm not having a good day i just recorded a whole section for you which didn't record let me start again so i'm getting out my sketchbook which is my current workbook for the front tattoos project um notes in here and just random things but what i did in here the other day is to work in this in the small squares that you've done and then cut them up there was nothing that i wanted to frame or consider a painting but i don't like wasting them so they go in here and after i stuck them in here i then started to play with a pencil making lines on them and remembered or discovered that i really like line coming through an open space so i tried different ways of doing that in here and here i did it over the blue and green and um i don't particularly think i got much out of this and today i'm just in one of those moods where i don't feel like coming in and working on big pieces and people have asked me what do you do when you don't feel it well this is time i had set aside to paint if i don't paint just because i don't feel inspired then i've just wasted that time that i'm actually able to paint don't want to do that so i want to do something so i came in and thought what could i do that would be fun and also interesting and maybe get further than i got with these so what i came across as i came in with these color swatches just which were on my shelf and these are the ones i mixed up in the mix color mixing video i love them i love the colors and on the back i've written what the palette was alizarin crimson cadmium yellow white and black that's all that made up all these different colors and so i decided oh actually i also had ultramarine blue in a couple of them that one had some ultramarine blue most of them were lizard you know didn't so i thought right what i could play with those colors which i love in this format of the little squares and then see what happens so and i might even do them even smaller than this we'll see now i'm working with these colors and this is i learned from taking a free workshop last week with gabriel lipper some of you might have done that this is called an off primary palette i didn't know that but what that means is i'm using cadmium yellow which is about as primey as you can get you know it's a bright strong yellow but instead of blue i'm using black because there is a lot of blue in black so i it's off primary because it's not the straightforward primaries instead of a cadmium red or scarlet i'm using alizarin crimson hue which is a very desaturated almost deep plum red and then i'm using white and i'm using those because that's what made these lovely colors but i learned as i say from gabe that that's what called an off primary palette and what i like about this one is i've got one color the yellow and a cool red and obviously the black's going to be cool but i have got something warm in here so it should it that's why it mix-up mixes up such pleasing colors and so i'm going to have a go but i'm gonna work in the squares using those colors and see if i can push my palette in a different direction because at the moment my palette has been made up of alizarin crimson i've had indian yellow instead of cadmium yellow i've been using some blue and i have used black i've used yellow ochre which i don't have here and yellow oak is a big standby for me in mixing up creams so i want to see what i can do within that within the limited range that's available to me and see if that maybe pushes the big paintings into different color areas maybe i start bringing in some cadmium yellow maybe maybe i don't we'll see but this is what i'm thinking it'll just be something to use my painting time on that i can enjoy when i don't feel inspired to tackle the big ones and don't know what to do with them so let's see what happens tequila in my life right so i've got uneven squares because i'm not bothered about what size they have i've got a bit smaller than last time what's interesting is i'm overthinking this i'm overthinking it already what should i start with the uh purple or the lizard crimson and the black to make some plums and then some lighter pinks or should i go with mixing the yellows and black and crimson together to get a green overthinking already but let's start with i'll try and do this on the palette you can see so we'll start with mixing up some green and i remember that on my cards i liked the green when i also added a bit of red into it so go over here and take some red and put that in i think i want more yellow in it than that i've also got a bit of fluid gloss medium in here i just found a i found a bottle of it to be honest and i know that i can put quite a bit of fluid gloss medium in before it affects anything about the pigment and so i can stretch my paint a bit more so i wanna now just play on here without thinking about squares which is really hard so to start with i'm not even really looking i'm just moving the brush around and you can't see but my eyes are closed you probably can tell from what i'm doing and then i'm going to try toning it down so this is both a color mixing and a painting exercise isn't it again not looking i just want to get some paint down and have some surprises happen and that's turned it really gray green because i put a lot more of the black in don't want it getting too dark brother so i'm lightening it up let's mix up some orange now which you can't see i'm on a different palette this is partly how i keep things organized um now if i put a tiny bit of that green into here just a bit it's just gonna harmonize everything and they're gonna pretty much harmonize anyway because it's a limited palette but just putting a tiny bit of each color into the other colors can make everything really look lovely one thing i miss when i'm working on a table is having it hanging up and the drips coming down and so i'm not using paint as fluidly and noticing as i do when i'm on the wall i like this orange against the gray that's nice where might we want something really bold we haven't got anything up here so this is just putting the pure black in and of course if the paint's wet i can mix on here now so people are asking how do you stop things getting muddy that's starting to get muddy because things smush together but it's not too bad if i leave it now it's okay if i keep adding on my until that's dry then it's going to get really mushed up we've got this very light gray here but i'd like something a bit warmer this is where i miss my yellow ochre but i'm being forced because i've set limitations for myself i'm being forced to do something else [Music] do i don't have any pure cadmium yellow in and again if i put that next to black it's going to look even stronger than if i put it just next to the green this is the magic of color it's color is always relative so i'll show you if i put black on that side of the page i put this lovely put this lovely green that i made out of the yellow and black then if i get some cad yellow i'll put it there they look nice together because that green is made up of cadmium yellow but if i put it there cover that up a minute look how much more vibrant it looks as a yellow than there there it's harmonized in with that there it's blasting out so this is good to know about color it's always relative if you want an area of your painting to pop you can do it by putting things that are very different next to each other black is the absence of color so anytime you put a vibrant bright color next to black it's going to really stand out it's mostly dry now i think the biggest thing i'm getting from this so far is that i really like this orange which is alizarin cream crimson and cadmium yellow with the green any time where those two meet in here i'm really liking the effect i'm really not liking this pink but i don't mind it when it's dulled down this much and i think i would like it if it was even more dulled down and even lighter so let's find out so here is that pink i could try a bit of yellow to take the edge off but i also put some more black in the the the yellow can send it a bit more french gray now that's made quite a cool color but it's actually not anything like the pink there's no pink left in that so i'm going to come back in put more pink in still very much lighter i've also just added a tiny bit of the orange i'm looking for bits that i don't like or where i don't think you know just don't like the effect that's been created i don't like this mushy area here what could what do i want in place though do i want some nice bright orange one now what's interesting is i still don't feel like going and attacking the big paintings today i'm totally absorbed in this so when i thought i didn't want to paint that wasn't true i just didn't want to paint the big ones and i'm okay with respecting that feeling and i think you have to be too listen to listen to your intuition do what you feel like but don't let that be not painting for days and days and days some days it's just not a painting day and that's all right but don't let that drag on and on and on and on because i think then that's when as artists we start to feel bad if we're not creating we're meant to create things we get miserable when we don't but it's all right not to do it every day and then a bit of oomph over there just a bit of pure um i haven't tried what would happen if i use a darker green with more of the black in and maybe more a bit of redding so where i want some dark it doesn't have to be black it doesn't have to be plum it could be a dark green and then you're gonna say well how do you know you want some dark uh because i know that i want a feeling of drama and one of the things that gives drama is light against dark we will always notice a light area against the darker area i think i'm going to take the tape off and then have a look at my little squares as individual things and see what i want to do with them if anything before they go in the sketchbook which is all they're for they're not for anything else this is so satisfying marks are random harmonized so beautifully just take care help what they love now how pleasing is that if only we could make big paintings that look striking that easily like i just love the sheet of the little ones it's so satisfying and that certain things that have happened now that they're isolated i really like and certain things i don't like so let's have a look at that love the squiggly line and i love the way it continued on and same here i love the way the line continues on there's a different quality to a line that does actually go off the edge to one that doesn't and this is when we paint on boards or canvases i think we have to make a gesture that goes off the edge when we look how much more striking it is when the painting actually did continue but you've contained it there's a feeling of power being contained in the piece when it goes off the edge i think that's really valuable to remember so i like that love the simplicity of this absolutely love the simplicity of that one i like the line scratch through i like the little orange dots that have landed there i like the simplicity of that one love the simplicity of that one quite like that one quite like that one the ones i don't like uh any place where it feels mushed up and textured too textured for me so here even though i corrected some of that i still haven't fixed it i love this smooth area here i don't mind visual texture i like visual texture so where the brush has made a texture but mushy paint texture i'm not fond of and i used to think i should because i like to look at texture in other people's paintings but this is one of the things where it's just not me i always have to try and clean it up and simplify and and that i just love that i just love like those two there's a lesson in in there for me about simplicity and most of this i love what i like about this one is this strong black shape here contrasted against some things that are going in different directions i think i like that that's going up and they're going across i often tend to have her right landscapes that go across with the horizon like this one this one the composition is really bothering me because it's a third or third or third almost and this big pink band in the middle just isn't doing anything for me i can fix that easily by breaking that up but it's just good to notice and i would probably break that up by making a random move see i already feel better about that because i've broken up that band i like that color could anywhere else benefit from a bit of that color that mushy part that i don't like i could come in and cover up with that since i've got it on my brush i'm not sure about that but it certainly cleaned it up and made me feel better instantly as soon as i clean things up it's funny because i have a lot of visual texture like i say in my paintings but not that can't describe it it's a kind of unclear mush that bothers me uh i think this one this one's got a lot of colors in it already this one's a little dull so i could just put a bit of that in there to liven that up it's a nice color this so all i've done is i've white into the green had already mixed up but it totally changes the nature of the color it's quite transparent so my black line is still showing through it doesn't work as well there because it's not enough of a contrast to that orange there i think it almost needs to be a more gray green to be a bit different from the orange still not sure about that this is a bit nothingy this one and this one i think i feel like need more light in them and probably having leaving more white paper would have benefited them fix the problem fully so yes no maybe you know i might put them into yes no maybe pile so no maybe no maybe with some help maybe no yes no maybe yes yes yes for different reasons you can't see because this mess on my table but for different reasons those are yeses the maybes then i would look at and say what would it need for me to like it more and there are different things i might do if i want to create light where i didn't leave white paper i could put some white paper back on this collage i could use some collage materials i could paint over this one i feel just there's a light white space but this one just kind of it's almost it's just not right something i need something to happen over there so i'll need to take that back up this one i like things about but it's perhaps it's feeling too textured for such a small surface and too dark perhaps that's it with that one that once feels too simplistic like there's not enough going on and actually i was happier when it was orange there see this is quite a transparent orange because both the yellow and the alizarin crimson are really semi-transparent colors so it's not covering the green up entirely but i can get a sense of what i think i think it's better with that covered up but i'll need to go over it again if i want to cover it up properly here if i want lighter then i have to think where do i want lighter and what kind of light whether it's too messy i feel this one there's not enough happening so i'm just looking at them and you won't always know you know why you don't like something or why you do like something but the ones i do like and i know i like i'm gonna put in my sketchbook and analyze why so that's what's going to happen to them they're done i leave them alone the ones i want to change some more which are these then i'm going to tape them up again so i can paint without worrying to like my clean edges and i know people who like messy edges which is also fine so this is all personal and there will be ones of these that i cannot save that i cannot get right which is fine [Applause] so now i'm happy with that happier i won't say it's one of my favorites but i will definitely keep it and put it in my sketchbook and the difference was just adding a little bit to that to you know make more of a picture but i wanted to show you now what i would do with them how i would use them so i take the ones i really love put them in my sketchbook and i work out why i really love them and it's the colors it's the color palette and the it's the image and it's the compositions but it's i love this orange this really vibrant orange i love this mixed green and i love this soft french gray i know how to get them again because i'm only using three colors and well two colors in black and white so i know how to get any of these again i just have to keep mixing until i get them again so i don't even need notes on that other than telling myself what colors i used at the top but what i need to understand is yeah there's for example no pure alizarin crimson in these so that's interesting so maybe that's what i want to try on another sheet just using these colors because i like the combination so that's what they taught me and then i'd come on the next page and i'd say what did this one teach me i could go that way couldn't it oh that worked oh that way anyway what did this one teach me well this is what happens when you put a pop of that pink in i don't like this one but what i do like is the orange and green together so knowing that on this one what i like is this purple and dark green together but i also like the way the line goes out of the picture and then the ones that i don't like at all that haven't really shown me anything i would probably next time come in tape back up and do some more painting on but as little separate pieces but paint on them with abandon again and see if i can do anything with them but i know what i don't like and knowing what i don't like is important so i could just stick that in my book and say too much of this messy texture don't like it um not enough light areas not enough dark areas i could make notes of what i don't like but in this case i think i'll just work on them a bit more and see if i can turn them into something but what i like about this is i didn't feel like working i knew i didn't want to tackle the big ones but it's okay because i've been i've done something that has moved my work forward and taught me something more like that there um so then i'll cover up the line that i liked do you want to put that in there now you know what i might do i might just keep that that bit of tape because i like the color combo again it's that purple against that gray anyway so i've i've done something that moved everything forward i've enjoyed myself i feel better for having created and yes so i didn't make a painting today that's not what this is about anyway but i did play around with my color palette and work out some possibilities going forward and did it in a way that's a bit more fun than say this where we just paint the squares which is fine and some people really enjoy that i enjoy this more that's it for me this week i hope your painting week is going amazingly well and that you are producing all sorts of exciting things and if you're struggling i hope you can see that there's nothing wrong with making something that you don't like the look of if it helped you to get a little step closer to making something that you maybe do like the look of this painting so i left it because it got to a point where i was loving the effects and as i say i couldn't work on it but now i've got some time and i'm ready to come back in because now i see the things about it that i feel need more work i feel it needs a bit more color interest but i also feel that the transitions in a lot of places are not soft enough um and i want to get some of that into it potentially playing with some of these colors particularly this one which i really like um and possibly bringing in pops of this orange and green which i really liked and so maybe that's going to come into this painting and there's a part of me that's really resistant to that because i i've lost something like this once before and there's this feeling of oh i don't want to lose it again but you know what it's not the end of the world i can do another one but also to help me loosen up with those colors this which is an old failed painting much smaller as you can see but i can have a little go with this i could you know play with those colors without worrying too much so this is a painting that i send it back what i'd like to keep in mind from that's those sketchbook pieces was simplicity and the color palette so do i just want to show you quickly this is why i like mixing colors up on the spot so i tried to remix this and i got it brighter there but then i quite like that so as you go around the painting and you find that color you're going to find it slightly differently every time i i like that because it makes it more interesting to me as a viewer and then turning it around just lets me see where maybe it's a bit neglected in terms of interest just trying to balance like the strong areas with the spacious areas i still want space though so i have to make something that makes it worth you while looking up there now it's not just a sanded off board it's beginning to take shape as something so if i just bring you close up you can see that's where the oil pastel scratched in it's different types of paint applications it's where the texture from the previous one is showing through under the transparent color this is where my drips which i've now reversed i've tipped it upside down so the drips are going in a different direction um and just you know some interesting textures and things to deal with when i come back to it i'm much happier when i've done these bold things because at least you've got something okay quite you know i see i see promise in that one no interesting so again going back to the palette i'm interested in exploring further this currently doesn't have any cadmium yellow in it this is cadmium orange but i didn't use cadmium yellow on here i can bring it in with the color you know in terms of the palette i've been using but i don't want to be too dramatic with it and i also as i said want to soften some of these transitions and improve the paint application um it's just not feeling brilliant in some places [Music] it's getting some um more interesting areas now where where the paint application is different as you move around it which i like so it just gives you more to look at and it gives it more of a feeling of energy and i love with the green and this pinky which came in accidentally it's like the marlin and the head the colours are coming in this is a very marlin colour um and they're coming in without me having planned it i couldn't do that again if i tried experimenting yeah that's a bit closer it's still not that color which yeah it's close enough so it's a mixture of dramatic transitions and soft transitions and i need to get the balance just right [Music] do [Music] you know like these pieces and learning what i liked here um has then fed into so i wasn't ready to tackle that straight away but it's fed into this one uh which i'm interested in and then that gave me the kind of impetus to come in and do something on here but taking completely different parts of what i got in those sketchbook ones so here it was much more about the grays pinky greys and on that one it was about the greens and orange and that and that with that pinky gray but you know some really nice things have happened on here that little pink swash complete accident i think i like the green i like this big bold mark up here uh absolutely love the accident that happened here with this brush stroke i wound up being treating the drips i was gonna get rid of differently they ended up with this complete change still not happy with some paint application up here like these big bold marks but some up here it's just all a bit rough and indecisive i think and uh but coming along and building up really nice layers getting pushing it past the point where it's okay because then i can pull it back you know making it almost too much so yeah so i hope this helps you to see that when you're not feeling super inspired there's nothing wrong with you we don't jump out of bed every day going i know exactly what i want to do and i can't wait to get there but just like any job we show up anyway and i do believe this is our job even if you're not paid for it i believe this is your job in life you were called to do this and i think it's your responsibility and not to be too heavy about it i think you owe it to us so when you're having a day where you just don't feel like it you've got exercises now under your belt from the taster course you're starting to build up a collection of exercises from this course that you can always go back to and that you can adapt and play with it and you can make up your own exercises and assignments there's always something that you can do with your paints which will move you forward even if the way in which it moves you forward is not always clear to begin with anyway i hope you enjoyed i shall see you all in the group [Music] [Music] bye-bye [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Louise Fletcher Art

Views: 40,740

Rating: 4.9563823 out of 5

Keywords: art, artist advice, artist, painting, painting tips, art tips, art inspiration, abstract painting

Id: AUlD6D39STY

Length: 41min 37sec (2497 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 14 2021