Let's Talk Art Blog

I'm still adding to my growing collection of colour sketches on paper. I started to see organic shapes in this sketch from the very beginning which informed the way it turned out! A fair bit of colour play without any particular direction in mind beyond starting with blue, pinks and a green.

I had another go at starting with a black background with this little 30 x 30 cm canvas board along with pieces of bright collage paper, some of which had found their way into the early layers of my bigger paintings. Most of the little cutout circles and semi-circles were ones I had lying around, leftover from previous snippings, so I was really just using up what I had to hand.

It doesn't get much more fun than this! My recent 'Outside The Box' workshop at Noosa Arts & Crafts was a fantastic weekend jam packed with colour, experimentation and exploration. We painted, did some gelli printing and collaged our way through 2 days of exploring the notion of thinking and working outside the box - literally!

The 2023 Incognito Art Show is a not-for-profit, artists-supporting-artists initiative raising funds for artists with disabilities at Studio A and Little Orange Studio in Sydney. This year over 2000 works were donated by artist from across Australia. The Incognito Art Show isn’t an ordinary art sale. Every A5 sized artwork, regardless of artist, is sold for just $100.

How do I know when a painting is finished? I've got new paintings on the go at the moment and this week I felt like I was getting close to finishing one of them....... And that's when the artists' age-old dilemma comes into play. At what point do I stop and feel satisfied that this painting is 'done'?

I started this sketch thinking I'd have another go with violet and green - but as you'll see after much indecision I ended up making pink the dominant colour, hence the title. It took me a while to tune into this sketch and I had a little wrestle with details - too much too soon, so lots of covering up and some big collage pieces to the rescue! Some interesting new shapes and ideas did emerge by the end though which may carry forward into something bigger.