Needs must!

    

Apologies for me being so slack with blog, I've been busy having a baby and moving house. It's been a bit mad and so my art (and blog!) have taken a bit of a back seat. It's only been 11 weeks since I had our little girl but it feels like years since I held a palette knife, got covered in paint or let myself fall deep into 'the zone'. The only zone I have been in lately is the parent & child parking zone. I am desperate to be creative again and put some stuff down on paper or canvas or anything I can lay my hands on! 

The problem is this: my studio lies packed up into around 17 boxes in the garage, waiting for me to find a place to rent or another house with more rooms and a moment without a screaming child or a wet dog to deal with.

The reality is that until we buy somewhere, I won't be unpacking my stuff, the house we are in currently just doesn't have space for me to have a studio. The paints are so messy, guaranteed it will get splattered around and any alone time I have away from the baby would be spent painting, not doing all the extra cleaning oil paints in a dining area would require. So, no. No oil painting for me for a while. Which made me sad, so I set out to do something about that.

I have discovered these 'oil sticks' which I hope will solve my temporary problem.

They are a lot less messy than oil paints as they are firmer, which also means they lend themselves to some different effects on the canvas, paper, board or whatever you are planting them on. This means I might be able to paint, sans mess, in my dining room, without the rest of my studio getting unpacked. It will hopefully introduce me to some new effects and techniques, which can only be good, right?  Because when a situation changes, you adapt. Why should art be any different? 

I fully intend to let you guys know how I get on on my new medium adventure. I forgot to gesso my paper today (no, actually I remembered but I had no time thanks to a certain golden retriever getting stuck in the river and a certain someone else getting rather clingy to mama) Watch this space.