My studio underwent a serious makeover. In January the builders started to work on the extension and after 3 months of hard work, the studio space has doubled and a massive skylight is yielding lots of daylight. So, besides mixing colours on the palet, I'm soon picking colours for the walls, beams and ceiling too. I’m very happy that the building activities are right on schedule and the studio will be ready for the local art trail: Nissewaard kunstroute.
During the build, with limited space and poor lighting, I’ve been working further on the breakers and the gull paintings. I find painting birds very different from drawing them and this has a lot to do with learning about colour, colour intensity and colour temperature. This takes a lot of my focus away from the drawing aspect of painting: the tonal balance and the quality of transitions and lines and is an aspect of the learning curve. It remains, as always, a journey. While building my skill set, I am also building the mental strengths of curiosity, appreciation and acceptance. I’m complaining less about what I can’t achieve (yet) and I’m taking more time appreciating the beauty that made me start a painting in the first place. I also try to cut back on comparison, which is not so easy in this social media day and age. But all in all the past months have been a time of completion. Framing the paintings from the last 2 years, finishing the gull and breaker paintings, the studio makeover and preparing myself for the first exhibition featuring my paintings. And before all this, I’m already dreaming about the next project, which will be all about dunes, beach and more breakers. Spring has arrived and prior to writing this, I was out on the beach with my feet in the water and my hair tangled by the wind.
If you’re close by, come visit me at the Nissewaard art trail on Voorne putten, The Netherlands, on the 20th and 21st of April. https://www.kunstroutenissewaard.nl/
