It has been a strange eighteen months, which seemed indeterminate at times,especially in Melbourne. My day became about catching the daily press conference and checking the numbers, taking a mask with my phone and keys and missing lots of normal freedoms. It seemed to curtail my art practice in a few ways, I didn't always have the luxery of taking my sketchbook and setting up an outdoor painting or sketch without considering lockdowns or limitations. Today I found a little sketch book and decided to restart those good habits I once had. I like to work with a waterfast fineliner and some gouache. I remember an art lecturer remarking that in a quick painting you can "gather all the information you need". I agree with this, and I like to add colour notes and make observations as I go. I also think one small sketch or painting can set up the research for a much larger work.
Living on the Bellarine Penninsula there is a huge amount of interesting subject and reference matter,to explore and now that Covid is less of a consideration,I intend to get out and get making some small paintings. This is a good process,
to restart and to set up a bit of playful creativity. I think taking my bike instead of the car will allow for spontaneous things to happen,always a good ingredient for outdoor painting. It could be stumbling accross an interesting shed or maybe finding some cows. I like to work over two pages, this book is a bit small, an A5 sketchbook would be my preference. I like painting on a landscape and wider format. The main thing is to keep up this habit of collecting small works for the intention of doing some larger works, I also have some new ideas and want to try out some different approaches. Anyway for now it was fun to get painting in my sketchbook again.