To do a good painting you have to be prepared to do a really, really shit one.
So here is how to do a truly terrible painting in oil paint and have a totally terrific time
- Put on some rubber gloves, yup a bit kinky this ‘art thing’ darling, and if your lungs are sensitive like mine you can don a face mask too. Sexy, not!
- Squeeze a good worm of scrumptious oil paint directly onto the canvas
- Smear the paint on with your fingers – give it a good old enthusiastic rub and enjoy the sensation of colour and the tactile give of the canvas, add a few more colours and play
- Sprinkle sand onto the painting. ‘Sand should surely look like sand in a seascape’ you think to yourself.
- Get a palette knife and push the oil paint and sand around – crusty!
- Blob some thinner over the crusty, lumpy oily paste, ‘oh heck it can’t get any worse!’
- Mess about with a brush and realise using sand on a paint brush is going to wreck it really quickly …
Your painting should have gone through several truly terrible stages by now
8. Keep thinking about the thing you want to paint (seascapes for me) and imagine being on the beach and wonder why you are working in the studio today? Promise yourself a trip to the beach asap, you need a holiday! Art is a tough business!
9. Scrape paint off, squeeze more paint on. Repeat process. Repeat again. Try to forget how expensive oil paint is.
10. Start to wonder what the heck you are doing?! How on earth can you make such a terrible painting and wonder how this is ever going to come together? Totally embarrassing!
11. Be appalled by the fact that the horizon isn’t even straight!
12. Beat yourself up mentally a bit more and wonder if Van Gogh had such problems and then remember that he did and feel a bit better.
13. By now you have probably got oil paint on your face, your arms and your bum if you have been for a pee during the process.
14. Oh well ‘keep calm and carry on’ and then you think ‘What calm?!’ Art is about suffering and passion!’ Suffer baby suffer, feel the passion, go for it and paint some more.
15. Somewhat desperately you wonder if you could call on the dead for help and try psychically channeling Turner and Rembrandt to paint for you …
15. ‘Oh! Maybe that worked’ …. suddenly something starts to emerge from the flotsam and jetsam of smeary colour, a beautiful brush stroke, a delightful colour combo that is ‘talking’ to you and then suddenly – AHA there is a seascape!
16. Feeling really rather proud of your masterpiece you reward yourself with a sink full of washing up, because your hands are now so covered in paint, despite the rubber gloves, that they need a jolly good soaking even after several scrubbings. This is no problem for you as you have a terrible habit of using a new mug every time you have a cuppa so there is a tsunami of crockery waiting for your attention …
17. You go to the kitchen, feel appalled and uninspired by the total chaos at the sink, (I thought I washed up this morning) make another cuppa, decide not to wash up and go do another painting instead!
She paints seascapes …
Dreaming of Love
Oil and Sand on Canvas
23 x 30 cm
Beautiful Old Grey North Sea
Oil and Sand on Canvas
23 x 30 cm
How Far to the Other Side?
Oil and Sand on Canvas
23 x 30 cm
The Moon is Falling
Oil and Sand on Canvas
23 x 30 cm
The Light
Oil and Sand on Canvas
23 x 30 cm
Fire Ball
Oil and Sand on Canvas
23 x 30 cm
Early Light, Oil and Sand on Canvas, 23 x 30 cm
Oil on Canvas
40 x 50 cm
Rain on the Beach
Oil and Sand on Canvas
Rain, Oil and Sand on Canvas, 40 x 50 cm
A Strange and Beautiful Place
Oil on Canvas
Stealing Clouds
Oil on Canvas
40 x 50 cm
Life is Beautiful
Oil on Canvas
40 x 40 cm
Early Evening
Oil on Canvas
40 x 50 cm
Light Rain
Oil on Canvas
40 x 40 cm