A Long and Fruitless Week

     Apart from a few hours on Tuesday this entire week has been a long long struggle resulting in nothing but rather naff and dull paintings. Its one of those periods where you wonder whether you has a spark of talent but its buggered off somewhere leaving nothing but a waste of space unemployed lay about. As you can guess I'm struggling a bit with paintings. Its possibly because I took a break and I'm still need to break back into it, maybe I hate finishing paintings and possible I'm letting my anxiety over the forthcoming exhibitions wreck everything. At present I'm waiting for a fresh load of canvases to dry, fresh start tomorrow and all. In the meantime I thought I'd lay out my works so far on here and consider what they are lacking, and what they need to become good pieces of work.

Piece 1 - Fabrics

    I began this piece a few days ago, an effort to show off my skill at paintings fabrics as well as developing my abilities at painting hands. Neither is brilliant in this piece and the overall tonal balance is also way off. I need to sit down and work out the shades more carefully, create a better overall depth to the work. 

• Make colours less empty and vulger, add weight and power to them. 
• Work on varying the textures and brushstroke
• Create a clearer focus to the piece, its empty at the moment and needs a lot more structure. 
• Clean up the lines of the sawing machine
• Make hands more skin toned and less peach coloured
• Become a better painter in general because this piece looks like I painted it in sixth form

Piece 2 - Life Drawing Class

   Still struggling along with this piece and while I've made progress I'm still a little lost. Its a redo of a painting I completed for the final project in foundation year. This is the original:

Foundation Year painting completed in 2008

  While I liked the concept this painting, looking back, is pretty awful. Then again I wonder if there will ever be a point where I look back and think my work was good five years ago. If your painting consistently you should be improving at a good pace. Here is the newest painting: 

The composition is much better, the canvas is sits more comfortably but there is a lot wrong. 

  Things which are wrong are:

• The colours are horrific, not quite are horrible as in the photograph but still far from nice. I need to really start taking better care of my pallet, thinking more carefully about the scheme and CLEAN MY BRUSH
• The faces are stiff and squashed, they hols no like or animation. This it partly because of the photographs I'm working off and partly because I'm not trusting in my brish strokes and the colours aren't working. 
• The figure in the foreground needs to be exquisite for this to work, if she is good enough I can get away with a lot. Moreover this piece is meant to be a show off piece, and it wont work if its not extremely competent.
• Work out the bloody bag at her feet or get rid of it
• Sort out the floor and lamp

  I'm really hoping I can finish this in the next week but it'll fill a wall up in the exhibition wonderfully if its good enough so is definitely worth the time.

Piece 3- Veg Still Life 

  This is a painting I completed a few years back and has been hung on the kitchen wall, mum criticising it gently the entire time. As a result I brought it with me in order to play with it. This week is the week I tried and it is better if not quite good.

Before I began to work in it- painted in 2012

Present State

    Things to do:

• Weights much better but the colours remain a bit off, too light for my liking and a little garish 
• Onions not half as good as I've mnnaged before, I need to be more adventurous with the colours like in my previous still lives
• Beetroot is a lot better but still needs fine lining and layering 
• Not sure whats wrong with the squash but needs playing around with 

Piece 4 - Flowers

My attempt

Renoir  - Flowers

  A piece I've had on the shelf from a few months ago. It was my first go at flowers and I didn't expect much from it. Its something I want to learn but it feels a little like stumbling in the dark. I saw a painting by Renoir in the National Gallery and it glowed beautifully, unlike mine.  I don't expect to be anywhere near Renoir's quality on the first for, and there are elements of the painting I like but I require so much more practice before my paintings will be worth a damn. His paintings is so much busier, yet the shapes are more defined and worked while remaining gentle and soft. The colours he uses glow against each other. Blue, green and pinks. Very simple yet they bounce off each other superbly.

Piece 5 - La Boheme 

  Completely lost...

Conclusive Points

1. I have to many paintings on the go and instead of persevering I'm bouncing between them all. I need to put my head down and get them finished. 
2. Work out my pallet problems and clean my brushes so that the colours come out cleaner and more thought out.
3. Sit doen with a pencil and paper and sketch out the tonal arrangement so that I can approach the painting with  plan
4. Possible take a break and play with a few newer paintings, dipping into the older ones as I go.