Skip to main content

Finding your joy

 I recently started the 8 day free taster course by Louise Fletcher and it’s been a revelation for me.

I don’t say this lightly, I’ve been experimenting with different medium for years now to balance the pernickety scratchboard work that I do. And what I’ve noticed is I do something, like it, don’t do it again, and then try another material. I’ve been doing this for years and not really moving forward.

What Louise said yesterday in the Q&A’s was that she feels insulted that people get annoyed at themselves when they can’t do a good painting they like after a week; does that mean they think successful artists find it easy, that they don’t put the work in; would you expect a doctor to be a good doctor after studying one term?

From my point of view, I think I’ve been hard on myself for not making the new art that I want, using new medium finding it tricky and just put it off until I feel the inspiration. (That hasn’t come back since before lockdown 2019!)

But today, I got up before work, into my art corner in the spare room and did 4 quick sketches, without pressure to make something good, and I’m going to continue doing this for the foreseeable. Thank you Louise






 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pricing jewellery

Much has been written and spoken about recently on the rising cost of silver in the media; the political landscape coupled with the new industrial demands for the material has created a perfect storm.  The leap in cost crept up slowly until the middle of 2025 and then pounced on jewellers right before Christmas.  Especially those, like me who have varying requirements of silver purchases which makes it more difficult to notice the rise as each purchase is slightly different in weight.  On top of that, I personally haven’t reassessed my prices since I initially calculated the costs for me to sell wholesale, when I attended Scotland’s Trade Fair at the SECC in 2024.  To work out the costs, I had carefully timed myself making various items in the workshop, then made the assumption that I could probably make more than one item in an hour, and priced accordingly.  The mistake I made at that point was not taking in to consideration the extra time it may take to cut an...

Marble from the beach

"The sea does not reward those who are to anxious, to greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach- waiting for a gift from the sea." A Gift FromThe Sea. This quote resonated with me as it wasn't until I read it that I realised that I never dig for that special something on the beach. Like I've said before, there is absolutely nothing of interest on my local beach at the foot of my garden, but once in a while something catches my eyes and the excitement of picking up a piece of glass or pottery never wanes. Usually it turns out to be either broken shell or a piece of plastic. This ring is for a new group exhibition in Thurso gallery on 23rd september 2016 then Wick afterwards. I am drawing on personal experience and this particular piece places the sea washed marble as something very s...

The Boy Andrew

This picture will be on it's way to Alessandro Studios in Broughty Ferry once the piece is in it's giant frame! The boat is 70 cm in height and the black pieces are lacquered rust beach finds. I'm going to add some red to the Sparkling Star, the other two boats are black.