This is an essay published on my Substack, ‘artist notes’. To subscribe and have future newsletters delivered straight to your inbox, please click here.

Knowing that I was at the start of a week in which I had a specific painting project to work on, I had the idea to keep a diary for this week's newsletter. As well as some hopefully useful practical takeaways, it ended up documenting my wild mood swings, tendency to get into utterly pointless mad panics and how I constantly make the same mistakes. Great!! Very cool.

Painting, for me, is despairing lows followed by total contentment, alternating with insecurity and frustration pierced by heart-bursting excitement and joy, on repeat. In the space of two days. I absolutely fucking love it so much, even when I hate it, which is often.

Monday 28th August

I unpacked a parcel of art supplies that arrived over the weekend, lovely gessoed boards and some new small filbert brushes. Wrapped up six works on paper that are going to the gallery in Stockholm and remembered how wonderful these were to paint, back at the beginning of the year. Maybe I just don't remember the blocked or frustrating days, but I do think I genuinely had such a lovely time making these pieces from my August series. I've shared them here before, but will post about them again when they're up online.

Between my other job as a dog-sitter and a few days away last week, it's been a while since I was at my painting table and I have two exciting projects to work on. Exciting, but also, deadlines scare me and I feel weirdly disconnected from painting at the moment.

This week, I want to take the sketches I did last month and start reworking them on board - six pieces in all, to deliver to a gallery I’ve just started working with; this will be my first collection for it, and I'm thrilled. I like the ‘fresh start’ feeling.

But… I have the ideas all there, a quite clear way forward, right? In my head, this is all looking just great. The problem is that I can't stop comparing the new versions to the original sketches. I was considering this problem before — I thought I might leave the original pieces on paper alone and have them stand as their own thing. But I love these ideas and I want to incorporate them into this collection. I am trying to just take general colours and shapes and not attempt to recreate anything too closely, because I just drive myself mad…. But this afternoon I felt like I was going mad no matter what I tried. Putting too much pressure on myself and every brush stroke (which is the antithesis of my plan for these pieces — they should be instinctual and playful), and subsequently hating almost everything I put down. The paint looked horrible, the balance between shapes was off UGHHH. When there’s the slightest expectation on something, it's like I go to pieces. I'm still not sure whether it's best to just try to pull myself together and carry on when the work is like this, or accept defeat and call it a day. Or at least step away for a few hours.

I don't have that many free days to paint over the next few weeks and I think that's adding to the pressure. I want to make every day I have to paint count as much as possible, but this is the very first one and it's not going at all how I hoped. My brain felt so foggy and I was way too in my own head, feeling like I was battling against the paint. My beloved materials! Felt like we were complete strangers this afternoon.

I’ve decided to take an hour or two away before I literally start crying (I'm not even exaggerating 🤦🏼‍♀️), have something to eat and drink and get some air. It’ll pass, I know it will, but I hate feeling like I’m shit at painting.

three pieces at different stages as I rework them into their final forms (yes, i am having to work right next to my bed at the moment

Yeah, so, a couple of hours’ break can make an absolute world of difference. First and foremost, when I went back I didn't think anything was quite so atrocious as I had earlier. Secondly, with that bit of distance, I was able to remind myself how to reconnect to my paints (slow the hell down, for a start!) It's harder to let curiosity and materials lead the way when you are at a later stage in the process, especially when someone is specifically waiting to see the result, but it can be done. I need to just allow that ugly, awkward stage at the beginning to be who it is. And remember, also, that I'm not looking for perfection (if I were even capable of such a thing). I want these pieces to be full of life, to show traces of the process that made them and have the human hand be visible in the brush strokes.

Then also, I realised when I took a break that I hadn't yet had a cup of tea today, and I know full well I can't function without caffeine. It might have been as embarrassingly simple as putting the kettle on all along.

in her awkward, messy stage. and feeling no shame about it

Tuesday 29th August

A dog-sitting day, so no chance to paint. When I'm away from my desk I get frustrated that I can't be there, but then when there's nothing actually stopping me, I'll find a million other things to do to keep from sitting down and starting. What. A. Cliché.

I am itching to get back to the piece pictured above, though. I'm realising I was so lost in painting when I made the original sketches that I didn't stop to record the paints I used, which is making my work now harder. The pink is too dark — maybe it should even be lilac? When there's a “problem” like this to work on, it nags at my brain until I can fix it. Hemingway famously always left his writing mid-way through a sentence at the end of each day, so he could just pick up where he left off the next morning. I like to do the same with my paintings — fixing some of the colours, and adding more coats to the black and beige squares will complete this particular sentence — but I find it so hard to stop and step away.

Wednesday 30th August

Went to bed last night and woke up this morning with a racing heart and the words “they're not going to be good enough” on a loop in my head. “They”, obviously, are my new paintings. Fortunately, somehow, I don't know exactly how, I took myself in hand somewhere on the slow, sunny walk home from my boyfriend's. I had already decided I was going to sit down at my desk with a “positive mental attitude” and it's a shame, you hate to see it, but the best way to encourage one — for me, at least — is by doing really boring, practical stuff. Before I started to paint I had: two cups of tea, a good breakfast, a shower, a quick tidy of my work space so everything was clear and orderly. I also, which has a bit more of a romantic vibe about it, spent some time in the garden, making a nice little vaseful of seed heads and enjoying the flowers. That this stuff all (spoiler) works wonders is both good (easy! achievable!) and kind of annoying (dull, unsexy).

I'm writing this in a break mid-afternoon. I've spent four hours with my paints today and want to go back to do a little more whilst the light is still so good. My paints and I are friends again, hooray! I've absorbed myself in texture, been calmed and lifted by colour. I've managed to shift my focus from outcome (just causes debilitating pressure for me) and get lost in the process again. I have battled to stop being too rigid in what I am trying to achieve/copy exactly my preliminary sketches, and be more present… letting this new standalone thing be what it wants to be.

It’s definitely helped to remember a couple of things I realised a few weeks ago: one — that I achieve flow state when I am curious and trying new things regardless of how objectively ‘good’ what I'm making is; and two — it’s good to break myself in by painting what I love the most aka stripes.

look at that black line just beneath the end of the arc… that super glossy, unctuousness little pool on the top! i get so excited about bits like this. unfortunately, this was always going to dry matte (too late i considered that i should have used a gloss gel medium), but i might varnish this section with gloss. i like other areas of the painting matte… will that look weird? something to figure out on friday.

Also, when I had a bad day the other day it was Monday ffs. Maybe it was just never going to go well??? I’m always crap on a Monday, just in general.

I ended up painting for about 6 hours today, which is a mega session for me — normally four hours is my sweet spot. I felt more comfortable with things not looking good straightaway today; like I could fully embrace all the marks I was making as steps on the path, as well as interesting in their own right. I could see mistakes as a good opportunity to try something different.

~

Unexpectedly sold a small painting from 2020 this evening. It's really nice when an older piece finds its home. It's an important reminder that it can take time for the right person to connect with an artwork and just because something doesn't sell quickly, certainly doesn't mean it doesn't have value. This particular painting has been online, at one of my shows, and in a gallery in in its time, and I’m enjoying this chance to reflect on its, and my own, little journey.

Thursday 31st August

Another dog-sitting day, so no painting, but I think the enforced break suits me, and I can do stuff such as update the spreadsheet I keep all my work catalogued on. This includes details like where paintings are, if they've been submitted for any open calls, price, etc. I *can* do stuff like that. Actually, I’ve been cuddling the dog and scrolling on my phone for ages instead.

~

In Red Comet, a biography of Sylvia Plath, I read this:

“Mrs. Prouty [Sylvia’s college benefactor], perceptive as always, warned Sylvia not to push herself too hard: “the person who wants to write enough will make time. So will you … Someone remarked to me after reading your poem in the Atlantic — ‘How intense.’ Sometime write me a little poem that isn't intense. A lamp turned too high might shatter its chimney. Please just glow sometimes.”

My work itself isn't “intense” but my approach to it too often is.

Friday 1st September

I only have a couple of hours of painting time today, but that’s okay. I feel in a good place. One of the pieces I wasn’t 100% sure about when I was working on it Wednesday, but yesterday when I looked at it, I sort of maaayybe thought it was okay? Overall, I'm happy with what I've done this week. And now today is about details; with the basic foundations for each piece down, there's more instant gratification with each brush stroke. And lord knows I love that.

There is, of course, always the danger at this stage that I’ll fuck things up, take something too far or just do something completely stupid. Really hope I don’t.

~

Just got an email reminding me it's the last full day to submit to the first independent exhibition being held by SOTA, which will be in Stratford in October. I quickly scurried about photographing and measuring a large piece I completed back in February that I haven't yet submitted anywhere and think deserves a shot. 🤞

~

Nothing catastrophic occured 🙌 In fact, in its final stages one of the pieces really came together and started to sing. Those are truly the best moments, when a painting all of a sudden feels like it makes complete sense and the process of getting there was organic and natural and it all just feels GOOD and RIGHT and actually really fucking cool. Such a beautiful feeling!

Have, also, to credit Lana here, because this album has been the perfect soundtrack the last few days.

I'm now ready to step away from these pieces over the weekend, so I can look at them with fresh eyes next week, and then varnish them and then fingers crossed the gallerist likes them and other people like them and buy them and I get to make more and go through the whole emotional gamut once again…

I can't reveal too much more of these paintings yet (I'll be able to share them properly once they're with the gallerist), but here are some of my favourite details from this week’s progress. These aren't fully completed yet (disclaimer!), but, like how I find zeroing in on the details of other people's work useful, zooming in here has helped me see what I love and therefore what I can accentuate and elaborate on. Also I find it much easier to spot parts that need fixing or touching up in photographs, for some reason.

i’m quite keen to leave the visible pencil marks on show here

black and white stripes became a unifying theme throughout the week

have decided i will probably leave this all matte

Thanks for reading along. I'm excited to share these paintings in full, and will report here when they're available, of course!

P.S: ICYMI, paid subscribers recently got a guide to Monks House, home to Virginia and Leonard Woolf, and Farleys, home to the incredible Lee Miller. You can read it with a free trial by clicking through on the link.

studio diary - 28/8 - 1/9

This is an essay published on my Substack, ‘artist notes’. To subscribe and have future newsletters delivered straight to your inbox, please click here.

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