Art Attack

I've recently had an inner ear infection that left me dizzy and struggling to focus. Reading, typing and scrolling down screens just made it worse. I couldn't do much outside for fear of falling arse over elbow and anyway it rained most of August. I was beginning to crawl the walls with frustration when I spotted an online art course. It was a free taster to promote the artist's more expensive content and involved daily prompts to encourage you to have a go. So I did. I've always made birthday and Christmas cards so I had some paper and I found a box of acrylic paints that I'd bought for visiting children. 

I'd never painted before. I'd tried setting up a rose or a trio of pears on the kitchen table and making a wonky pencil sketch then sloshing watercolour at it until I chucked the whole muddy mess in the bin, admitting that my art teacher was right all along and I really couldn't draw.

This was different. We were told to put paint straight onto the paper, to whoosh it about with a credit card or a spatula from the kitchen drawer, encouraged to let it dribble or run and to make marks with a twig from the garden. It was like being 4 years old again before the pressures of 'what is it' and 'is it any good.' set in.

Soon every surface was covered in paintings - some drying, some waiting to have layers added or be painted over or be rubbed with sandpaper to reveal the colours underneath.

I tried quick sketches

and impressionist-y poppy fields

and light abstract skylines

and discovered a love of dystopian landscapes. 

But best of all I realised that just because you can't produce an accurate charcoal drawing of a sheep's skull it doesn't mean you can't have fun.