10 months? 10 MONTHS?!

Firstly, Happy New Year! I cannot believe how long it has been since I last painted, let alone updated my website. Richard and I finally sold the flat that we had been trying to sell for 45 months, back in September last year (on the 10th attempt – yes, it was an absolute nightmare of an experience!) Since selling it, we have finally been able to decorate the house that we have been living in for 3 and a half years now, which means that for a long period of time, I have had no room that was suitable to paint in! Ok, that may partly be an excuse, but there have been a lot of other things on my mind the last few months, although nothing as stressful as trying to sell that damn flat.

In any case, I sent my application into Art on the Prom at the start of March, which will be taking place on Sunday 6th September this year. Once I had my application accepted, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I’d have to stop making excuses. There would be nothing worse than going along to that wonderful event, with a half empty stand full of all old work!

With a little extra encouragement from Richard, I finally decided that now it’s June, I really need to find some (seriously lacking) motivation and get back into the swing of painting again. This weekend has been the first time I have done a landscape painting since August last year…. Blimey, that’s 10 MONTHS!! No wonder I was so worried about whether or not I’d be able to remember how to paint when I picked up the paintbrush yesterday! I guess I should let you be the judge of that…

This weekend’s painting is titled ‘Reach for the Summit’. It is an oil on canvas, and lots of it :) (oil paint that is, not canvas – the canvas is actually on the smaller side of my usual preference – 20x28in (50x70cm)). I picked a theme that was a bit different, as I wanted to get back into painting doing something that wasn’t going to be ‘comfortable’ as such. I wanted to prove to myself that I hadn’t forgotten how to do it and I thought the best way would be to challenge myself straight-off. Risky I know, but I’m fairly happy with the end result - I guess that’s not a bad outcome baring in mind how long it’s been and how worried I was before starting! Let me know what you think… :)