pamelas MA creative practice blog

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My First Blog Post

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

Organising my landscape sketchbook

Committing my work to my sketchbook! Putting loose sketches into my sketchbook and making notes about my work felt very productive.

Really enjoyed this oil painting of my son. It took me about 3 hours to complete but have to leave it to dry now. I don’t want to spoil it or loose any of the likeness to try and gain more of a likeness. It’s a difficult thing to do to know when to stop.

It’s good practice to do portraiture. It is teaching me to look, to observe and to keep going. Each time I do a portrait I get a little more confident. I gave not tried doing a full portrait yet with clothes or interiors or a still life. I think that is going to be my next challenge. there is so much to work on I can’t wait to get started.

Having graduated 20 years ago and only doing my MA is difficult because I feel I have 20 years of catching up to do. Not only that I didn’t go to university till I was 27 so there is another 7 years catching up to do at least. When I left school in 1986 the careers advisor asked me what I wanted to be. And I said an artist. His response was why ? Do you want to end up like Van Gogh ! If I had said yes I wonder where I would be now? So I have 27 years to make up for lost time! Getting to know more about other artists, their work and move my art forward. I feel I’m going as fast as I can at the moment but I want to do more and go faster ! I’m buying lots of second hand cheap books to make a collection of what I could have had by now!!

Experimenting with sketches from my sketchbook

Unfinished. Using my sketchbook as inspiration to find more landscapes from one sketch idea.

The snow in the trees has inspired me to think about white . I still have to put the branches in but I worked this backwards. Starting with white snow then the brown and green for the tree trunks then black for the night sky. This painting is in oils so I had to stop there! It was beginning to get too thick. So I have left it to dry for a couple of days at least I think.

Landscapes in green and yellow

Reproducing landscape ideas from one sketch ! First photocopying the original then using different colour gouache to create different moods

What I find interesting about myself ! If I think I am validated in my ideas I suddenly have more ideas and confidence for a while to experiment more freely.

After completing a days sketchbook workshop last year at Lund Studios in Easingwold Graham Sutherlands name was mentioned after I had produced some work. How could I possibly not have known who he was. This is the whole point of this MA Creative Practice. It is opening up a completely new world to me. I’m learning about artist after artist after artist. Somehow or another a lot of them have connections to each other. Once I start investigating and studying I unearth so many interesting facts and details.

Reading about how Graham Sutherland met Picasso on several occasions and even bought a property close by on the French Riviera. Like so many artists do! Me included but it’s only a caravan. But still it means I have a connection with the place and can visit in the holiday season.

Graham Sutherland has a lot to say about Picasso do I will be studying this in much more detail.

After learning more about Graham Sutherland I am practicing some of my own landscapes with a freedom I didn’t have before seeing his work. They are slightly more surrealist and leave me fighting trying to recognise the original.