Its all in the detail

I am painting lots, some of the paintings are large - like 1 x 1.5 metres or so - and sometimes its a struggle for me to scale up everything to achieve the results I want. These paintings are full of lovely mini paintings, loads of em. I get sucked in to these areas, wishing I could replicate the feeling of these at a larger scale, these are relaxed and confident, the marks are exciting and the colour fields exactly right, urgh.

The rhythm of my painting goes like this - great idea (in fact loads of ideas) - decide on size etc. - quick sketch of composition - start layering the areas of colour - adding more and more stuff - leave it for a bit - over complicate the painting - dislike it - paint large areas out - simplyfy everything - bigger areas of colour - add in areas  of detail/drawing. And so it goes on. My aim is to always learn through practice, to start bigger and to leave it alone when the voice in my head says 'oh that feels exciting and slightly scary', and I feel that in my gut.

One of my favourite abstract artists is Emily Mason (1932 - 2019) her paintings explain what I mean about spontaneous and gestural painting at scale. She talks about spacial relationships, using the paint for its qualities of transparancy, opaqueness and liquidity and knowing intuitively when it feels right. I am trying to bring a more spacious feeling into my paintings.

below L: Past the Morning Star - oil on canvas - Emily Mason