Facing the next blank canvas

Well, I spent another afternoon on the view of Durdle Door yesterday and now I am going to hang it on the wall of my studio for a while until I decide whether it is finished or not. I have attached it to this blog so that the reader can see the small changes that have now been made since the 'work in progress' was posted in my first blog. I often do that when I have a piece that has been difficult to achieve. Giving a piece this time to 'breathe' allows me to see what needs to be done. One of the problems with this particular canvas is that there are large areas of the land mass which are a very smooth texture - no brush marks, just tone. I used quite a lot of my own prepared medium with the paint to build up layers, allowing each layer to dry before applying the next. Usually I would do that with texture and I am not sure yet whether this new approach has worked. At the end of the day I think it is only the artist who can resolve a piece, regardless of what the viewer may perceive.

Now there is the process of deciding what next? This for me is the dreaded blank canvas that has to be tackled. I usually work from drawings and still have several pinned to the wall that have not yet been turned into paintings, but I looked at them yesterday and did not feel motivated by any of them! Hey ho! There are also two or three unresolved canvasses that are stacked against the studio wall and I have to decide whether to battle on with those or abandon them entirely - I hate admitting defeat, but that may be the only answer. I should try to work on more often on more than one canvas at a time.

I will take the dog for a walk up the mountain. I do get ideas when I am out walking. At home in Dorset, a walk through the woods or up on Cranborne Chase would nearly always un-pick the creative knots, but beautiful though it is, the landscape of the Pyrenees has not been so effective!