the more I do the more I see

the more I do the more I see

I was struck on my morning dog walk the other day that the clouds were actually a shade of green.

Colour has always been important to my design practise, especially in logo and visual branding design because it does so much to tell your audience about you – what type of business you’re in, and if are you fun or serious, traditional or innovative, before they’ve read anything in your logo shape, name, messaging or image style. And as a graphic designer I’ve always been struck by the shorthand we give to things by using icons and use of the expected – blue sky, white fluffy clouds – using the universally recognised for subliminal messaging, but since I started ‘do-ing’ painting in earnest I’ve been looking more closely at colours and shapes. And I’m aware that nothing much is as it seemed to be. I no longer lean into expectations. I now look at everything differently. I am constantly surprised by the ordinary.

I haven’t been counting, but for my painting I must be reaching the 3 000-hour ‘expert’ rule since my pivot (10 000 for Gladwells ‘world class’ – not sure I’d call myself a world class graphic designer even though I’ve put in the hours!). I’m not including four years of art school, and forty years as a graphic designer, but I probably should.

The more I ‘do’ art – rather than ‘commercial’ art, the more I see.

the ‘falling’ series of paintings

the ‘falling’ series of paintings

What does falling feel like – can I create a painting that gives you the sensation of falling. Does falling start to feel like rising? Does colour change the feeling? This was the thinking behind this series of paintings.

I started with a block, oblong, like a brick. In the series they are placed in roughly the same position on the canvas and at about the same size but at slightly different angles and with the paint moved differently around each one.

The first in this series of  ‘Falling’ I was also playing with grey on orange and how the grey changed to a lilac hue when skimmed over orange – something that I noticed in Horizon 13. This is the most worked of the series. I continued to use the same structure, oblong mid right at an angle, but now using a single colour palette – each different colour bringing a different mood and urgency.

All the series of acrylic paintings are at first painted in a single session to bring the energy, and then refined further after the paint has dried.

A series of acrylic paintings on 20 x 16 inch canvas board on the theme of falling.

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