Weather Change

Thursday today.
Remove the exoskeleton of paid work and this creature is very much affected by the elements. It's bleak and overcast today so inside near that fire.
There is heaps of written work to do. I keep a Visual Diary and have done since I first started teaching at the art school in Albury - the one that became CSU School of Creative Arts for a short but illustrious period before the slow death by change of name and eventual shutdown and move to Wagga Wagga CSU campus.
The art students at the Albury TAFE art school are encouraged to keep diaries and some students love it and others find it a challenge. But just as an aide memoir it's worth it. They become terrific resources over time.
I find a break from the studio is worthwhile. If I had a large studio...well I'd probably live in it but i would operate by Susan Rothenberg's advice - just get in there everyday even if you don't paint just read or do whatever - you have to be with the work. She is such a superlative painter - her show I saw in New York was one of the highlights of my time there - HUGE works, so painterly and audacious and wonderful.
Anyway I'm beside the fire inside!
Yesterday was productive except I couldn't go near the small paintings with the over the top red lacy layer - have to have a think now before I go back into them.
The tree works are developing still early days but am enjoying the layering and managing to keep it open ended and not tightening up.

I have had much fun with the talc mix again and like using it from thin through to thick. The danger is if it starts to look like an iced cake! It's a good way of keeping the surface open and fresh.

I put another rough layer of the matte impasto additive on one of the larger canvases and quickly sketched in the start of the image of one of the panoramas. The larger works have to speak with the small paintings and will be tied together by technique and concept - that's the plan!

The studio is chockers because I share it with Richard. He is a night owl and works in the wee hours setting up fabulous still lifes to photograph under special lights. I can't work at night. This is a pretty good situation.

I work on the table and will use the easel later in the process. Advantages of this studio - over head lights, sealed now against possums, neighbour's cat and the odd brown snake all from whom I have been visited (terrorised) over the years. Disadvantages, too cramped for very large canvases (I take them outside) and freezing cold. But the idea of a fantastic studio is just an idea, good work is not dependent on the studio it comes from.