I’ll begin by saying, happy New Year, and I hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday season!
I do mean that, however I must be honest and admit that I’m amongst the cynics with the opinion that human traditions are silly and illogical… I’ve gone through phases of being completely “off” them. You know, it’s just another day, why mark it as special because we’ve made another trip around the sun?
Now I’m going to contradict myself again, because this year does feel like a fresh start. I genuinely feel hopeful for the New Year and all of the ideas that I’ll have the opportunity to cultivate. Especially after working solidly on Christmas commissions for
the past few months.
Actually, I recently realised that a whole year has flown by with me working on almost only commissioned art. This is mainly because I started renting my first place with my boyfriend in 2016 and became overwhelmed with the true cost of living, so needed the money more than ever. Despite supposedly having enough time to do both my own work and the wishes of others, I just didn’t manage it.
But this year I will. And I have to now… I’ve written it publicly!
So here are a few of my plans for the year:
Capture the Person
Just over a year ago I collected art from some people that I met. I gave them each a canvas, paints and brushes to use and instructed them to not worry about the outcome and just to paint whatever they felt like. My aim is to work into and on top of what each of them has done and paint a portrait of them. I still have no idea how any of them will turn out. I want to take my time, adding paint, collage, words… whatever feels right until I know that the piece is complete.
This idea came from Christian Hook, the winner of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2014, who did this for his stunning rendition of Alan Cumming.
Famous Figures
This leads onto my next goal – to further develop my portraiture and capture iconic figures. First on my list is the wonderful David Attenborough, who I, and many others truly admire! I’m not giving too much away though and am cautious of setting the bar too high by listing many.
Collaborations with fellow Artist Orbit
This has been on the cards for a while. Orbit contacted me a while back after seeing some of my work from project “Intangible Entities” in the Artful Pelican Gallery where he also exhibits. In this project I attempted to capture what cannot be seen and I can’t express through words. The issues I addressed in this project were very personal to me, but I’ll be branching out to attempt something similar with a topic that I can only use my imagination to empathise with, and never actually experience. Hopefully this will start to transpire soon and Orbit and I will have more to reveal. (Thank you to him for being so patient with me!)
Get Out There!
I’ve struggled to build up a huge collection of work as whilst battling with depression it’s been difficult to be particularly productive. On the plus side, I’ve been fortunate enough for my work to sell almost as quickly as I created it. I have more thoughts following on from “Intangible Entities”, but both you and I will have to wait and see what develops.
I signed up to Artists’ Network Bedfordshire a few months ago and am flattered to have been nominated and awarded with Artist of the month for December and January.
Once building up a collection of work, I plan to sign up for Artfinder, as well as the Buckinghamshire Arts Society.
I’d love to get more involved with both county Art groups and to meet and work with other Artists.
I want to seize the opportunities that come my way this year, and whilst I fully aim to do this, writing and posting it like this remains daunting. I’m extremely humbled by all of the support that I’ve been given this past year and hope to live up to the praise that I’ve received. Thank you to everyone that buys my work and/or wishes me well, I am extremely grateful.
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