So as I
already told you, a few weeks back I started the Lilla Rogers Make Art ThatSells e-course, and the time has run away with me. I promised to share on here
some of the work produced, and here is the first in a series of posts to come.
This past week: Create a piece of abstract wall art that you would like to
offer as a gift to a friend or that you would hang on your own wall… I knew I
was going to love this class project! I have always liked to just look at a
blank page and then try to place images and colours, but I’ve always done it
small scale and have always worked very tightly, hardly ever finished to a
point at which I was satisfied, and always only ever done this to keep at home,
hidden from view!
This week I decided to work on a large canvas
in order to free myself up from the small paintbrush syndrome. So I did one
canvas, hated it, and began to wonder just why I had thought that I could do
this, not really having ever seen myself as a painter, and finally, I started over on another…my
colours were purple and pink and any neutrals that I wished.
At some
point, something
happened - my work became
freer, I got happy, started singing whilst working, drank copious amounts of
coffee, and then I started to see my work in layers, working on the whole space
each time. First, I worked on the background; adding cut-out leaf shapes in
white and deep pink tissue paper. Then I painted floral splodges in all shades
of pink, peach, coral; got out the nail polish to add details in the hearts of
the flowers that were emerging…then I wanted something harder, more graphic, and
more dramatic in size, proportion and colour to lift the whole thing. My black
and white striped Ikea rug in my lounge inspired a more graphic feel to my huge
black and white sunflowers! What better way to ensure that the finished picture
could sit on my own wall than by coordinating it with my rug! Big purple paint
circles came on top and then, and only then, when my ‘freeness’ had passed its peak, did I allow myself to get out my white
pen to go into doodling detail on top…the lettering came easy for me as ‘Blossom’
was my grandfather’s nickname for me as a child…rather lovely that I can use it
again now, when I have decided to turn around my career, and go back to doing
what I loved most as a child…and flowers are my absolute favorite thing to
draw! They’ll be more of these to come I think…maybe a series of floral mood
paintings…watch this space…
