The past few weeks have been so exciting for me. I was awarded 2 National Awards in the space of 2 weeks. It’s extremely validating and confirming to know that I’m plodding along in the right direction. It’s also gratifying to sell the two paintings which won the Awards. A girl could get quite dizzy with all this success.

However, I view these Awards in the context of my path as an Artist. This path has not been paved with gold. In this last year before these happy events I had sold 2 paintings, had one failed pop-up show (thank you Covid), asked to come and collect my unsold paintings from a local gallery and not been considered for a group show which I felt I should have been.

I had felt somewhat stagnated as far as sales goes, and our spare bedroom/painting stockroom was brimming with stacked paintings with nowhere to go.

Aware of the growing concern of my darling man, I refused to take any of this to heart and draw conclusions that my work will forever sit leaning against the bedroom walls. Stubbornly, I just kept going and kept painting.

I did pivot and include online courses into my income stream, but the desire for the dream of being a self-sustaining selling artist is strong. What is stronger though is the curiosity as to what my paintings will look like. I just want to see what I can do and I can’t wait around for stock to move before I start on my next lot. So, the inventory grows…

Having won the Awards I can’t make any assumptions that suddenly my work will be in demand. I just have to keep painting, improving and learning but happily with invigorated confidence. I’m pleased to report that since writing I have been approached by a gallery and asked to contribute to an upcoming group show. That should reduce the inventory by 3 items – hopefully permanently, unless they all come home after the show.

Unperturbed, I’m about to start on a new series of paintings and I just can’t wait. I absolutely love the process of starting with blank canvasses and seeing what happens as they develop. I don’t start with any fixed plans, only ideas to bring forward from my last series and these are exciting for me.

Starting can be difficult. Starting a painting, or a series of work can be daunting as the blank canvas stares the artist down challenging her to hemorrhage her brilliance onto it’s blank surface. This expectation is always self-imposed and can be the biggest hurdle of all to overcome. When we first step out on our artist’s journey, although it begins with a love of being creative and exploring materials and techniques, it can soon lead to frustration and a damning dialogue with the Inner Critic as we fail to reach our expectations in our work.

It’s funny how we assume we should be naturally excellent at producing good artwork. Who said it would be easy? And why do we think it should just come naturally? This is a myth. It’s not easy and it doesn’t come naturally. The desire may come naturally and we may intuitively lean towards creating some form or another, but in order to get good we have to learn and practice, just as we would in any other field or endeavour.

I have been painting full time for 3 years, but before devoting myself to my own path as an Artist I taught for 15 years and would daily help my students assess their work and solve the problems in their artwork. During this time my own work was almost non-existent, as life and all it’s demands superceded my desire to create. But I do believe all this ‘playing in the field’ with students over the years just kept me in the game.

When I eventually started painting every day trying to find my style I found it incredibly frustrating. I had been telling others how to do this for years and here I was hating my own work. Slowly though, I started to find processes, colours, techniques that I loved and my confidence grew.

So how did I find my style? Well, you know I don’t really know what my style is. I know I have one but I don’t spend too much time trying to analyse it. I know what I love to have in my paintings and I think ultimately that is what my style is. I love to have order and I love to have accidental marks. I love harmonious colour, I love surprises in the form of hidden collage and chips of collage that can be seen peeping out of layers of paint. I love texture.

I decided early on that I love stripes. They have meaning for me as it was announced by my darling Aunt that “We are a family of Stripes!” when she saw my nephew standing at the end of her bed in a striped t-shirt. She had woken from a week-long coma, so to hear her just speak was joyous and to hear her make this grand pronouncement was hilarious, given the circumstances. So, to me my stripes are my way of infusing joy into my paintings and reminding me of my heritage and those who have loved me from the beginning.

I believe finding your style is a little bit like aging. You don’t see it until you look back and then it can be quite clear. Just as you age, until you look at photos of when you were young you aren’t aware how harsh time has been!! (A positive spin on that is that you are never going to look as good as you do today!! Is that positive?) Let’s get back to talking about finding your style…

You don’t have to know what your style is when you embark on your artist’s journey. When you are further down the path, you can look back and you will see the clues. Colours, marks, techniques you have favoured. Combinations of shapes and preferences for compositional arrangements that seem to keep popping up in your work. The idea is to follow the path of what you love and look for what has some meaning for you – just as stripes do for me. What do you love in others work, what do you love to do in yours when you’re not thinking? Take something and run with it and see what happens.

Most importantly though, make sure you keep learning and having fun. Give yourself a break. See everything as an experiment and a step forward on a long journey. One painting does not an Artist make. Some paintings will be great, and you’ll love them, others not so and you’ll paint over them. As you go along your journey the latter will become fewer and fewer. But I bet even Picasso produced a few duds.

If you would like to experiment with some new techniques I have a course called STARTS where I teach 5 different ways of starting an abstract painting. It’s my treasure trove of techniques, leading you through a process of painting where you’ll never be intimidated by a blank canvas again.

Come and join me in my facebook group - The Upbeat Artists Group. There are free tutorials in there where I share my process and it’s grown to be a lively group of supportive artists.

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