BACK AT IT...

After being away from painting for about 6 months I am back at it and feeling like painting is all I want to do!

When I say I was away from painting, what I mean is I hadn't attempted a large 'serious' painting.

The reason for this was I just had lost any urge to paint. I was still doing the odd 6 x 8 " little ones ...but they are simple and do not require too much thought or effort.

I was still creating the e-book's which required me to paint a picture...and running my 'paint parties' which also require me to produce a painting.

I was basically an artist that didn't paint!!

People would introduce me as 'the artist' and inwardly I would smile and think ...if they only knew!

I was busy doing other things like setting up my shop in Childers, and travelling all round the country teaching so I didn't really have time to dwell on this predicament.

But it was there, eating away at my insides.

I just kept pushing it away.

I sure as hell didn't want to consider that I might never get the inspiration to paint again.

 I was running round dishing out inspiration to all and sundry but my pot of creativity had hit the road and left!!

Then about 3 weeks ago I woke up one morning and thought ..OK it's time to get back into it.

I have my studio set up in my shed and it had sat there waiting for me for the 6 months and was looking like it needed a good overhaul.

So I got in and cleaned and throw out rubbish and hung paintings and things on the walls, sorted out my paints, found all the unused canvases I had stacked away from sight...so that they wouldn't look at me and ask why!.

It took all day to get it up and running again. But oh what a feeling when it was done...I could feel the creative juices start to stir.

Then it was back to the age old question always faced by artists ...what do I paint. Well I have been telling other artists how to overcome procrastination ...so I just thought ..practise what you preach Sandy!!

A friend had asked me why I don't paint guinea fowls...So I thought thats what I will do.


So I put a canvas on my easel and away I went.

How good did it feel ? ...It felt amazing and that guinea just fell out of me.

I was back!

This is my comeback painting

Until next time..

HOW I DID IT

Just going to share quickly my painting of the Odd Galah



This a large canvas measuring 122 cm x 90cm.

I was in a hurry so just quickly drew in a very rough out line with a large marking pen

I then started to paint I was just trying to paint in the bird as quickly as possible

Just working on the darks

Here I have finished painting the bird. It is very rough but now I can start to stand back and fine tune it.

You'll notice that I have painted a dark grey where the shadow part of it's head is.

Here it is completed.

I had some trouble getting the birds position right so that it looks like he is perched on a branch and looking down. 

In the end I think it came off

The background colour is a very rich purpley pink blue. Took longer to settle on that colour than to do the rest of the painting.....but that's not unusual...for me

That's it for now