Glasgow School of Art Class

More updates soon. Still alive.

Below is a white (on umber ground) under-painting for a class that I'm taking at GSA. Admittedly this has been helped from some auto leveling in photoshop, it doesn't look quite as vibrant as this in real life, though it should. The idea is that you do this one week, let it dry and do colour the next on top. Unfortunately I ballsed up the colour stage this week, so I'm glad I photographed it before.

You gain another level of appreciation for some of the master painters once you try to paint- especially if, like me, you're used to photoshop and multiple undo's. With actual paint there's nowhere to hide, mix a wrong colour or get your values wrong, things head south very quickly and you can struggle to undo your mistakes. But I like this in a way, it helps you become decisive and it makes you really think about colour and form. It is though, very very tough.

There have been some weeks where I've struggled badly and wondered why I do this to myself. But the simple answer is, you don't know what you can achieve the next week or what's around the corner and so this shows. The week before this was painted was a disaster and I considered quitting.

This week opened up some failings in my mixing of colour so the plan is to do some small thumbnail studies. And I also have bigger questions about what I'm going to do with all of this. Eventually I'll want to start producing finished pieces that can be considered good enough and sold. Scary thought.

I think it's in there, just need to keep going...