This morning has been about...

The joy of a trip to the Swedish bakery with a found fiver

Tempered by walking through mud on the way back across the park

Redeemed by finding a cute table abandoned by the side of the road and taking it home!

Yesterday for the second time in the space of a few weeks I arrived at the Printmakers Workshop having made my way across town laden with A2 sketchbook and a bag heavy with art materials before realising it was a Monday (they are shut on Mondays). The fact that I've done this twice now would be extremely galling were it not for the fact that the walk back home this second time actually resulted in me having a bit of a breakthrough in the project I had gone there to work on.

Which led me to a realisation about my habits as an artist. I often get blocks of weeks where I can't get anything done on a project and usually put it down to lazyness or distraction; but the one thing that always brings me back to it is a flash of inspiration that changes something about the work. So I've now come to the conclusion that the blockage is actually brought on by knowing deep down that what I was planning on doing was wrong and that's why I can't just get on with it no matter how much I want to get it done. This tallies with what could be seen as a lack of experimentation in my work, because I tend to do a lot of my experimenting in my head.

Anyway, by the time I got home I was finally able to start working on some of the backgrounds for the screenprints. Way back in goodness knows when last year I decided to give up on the idea of the background layers having images in them, as time consuming searches had not resulted in anything I was happy using that could be consistent in style throughout the series. I made a choice, in the interest of getting the project done and dusted, to have single colour flat backgrounds, and this was where the blockage started to set in. It really wasn't the right choice as it meant the images didn't tell enough of the stories and to me it seemed there was very little about them that was really that artistic. After working through a few new ideas about how to do things in my head on the way home I believe (please let it be true) that I have found a way of doing them that I'm happy with. This first one is just an example of the general theme I'm working to now with the background layers; they won't all consist of only words.

Work in progress, creating acetates for screenprinting, image © Sharon Whyte 2008

Comments

[gracia]

Many joys, and what is there not to love about a found fiver?

see you, grache

[Hannah]

Jeez...that Swedish bakery is expensive. How about making a t-shirt saying "I found a fiver and all I got was one lousy roll"? ;o)

[the sapient pig]

Hannah, I got more than just a roll silly :). Not only did I get change from the fiver, this is actually a whole loaf. He he.

Hi Gracia! Nice to hear from you :)