Monday 28 December 2015

3 Days to go! Julie Ford Oliver, and breaking out of a block :)

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Julie Ford Oliver


Breaking the block :) New Work in progress
Today I stopped making excuses and finding other jobs to do and I went out to the studio and slopped some paint around...it felt so good I think I'll do it again tomorrow :) Now for the important part...today's inspiring artist is Julie Ford Oliver. Now I know I said these would be in alphabetical order, but when I wrote my list I got confused by Julie's double barreled surname and chose O as the letter :) It doesn't take much to confuse me. Anyway, back to Julie...I chose the image of the kitchen sink that Julie painted because it was the first image of hers that I saw :) I still love it! Julie can make the most everyday scene so extraordinary. Her fracturing technique is so clever and she shares her huge amount of experience generously. Julie blogs very frequently, personally I don't know how she does it. If you aren't familiar with her blog Art Talk then you should absolutely become familiar immediately! That's an order :) Even though Julie gets copious amounts of comments (I have never seen so many!) on every post, she takes the time to answer all of them and always switches it around to say something nice about the commenters own art :) Also, Julie paints the best bird's nests, eggs and feathers I have ever seen :) So thank you Julie, you are a gem :)

Ok, something I learned this year, as usual it's advice I am sure has been given to me before and I think I have even given it to others (but who takes their own advice am I right?). The best way to break creative block is to pretend you don't have it and go and put some paint down. I knew my process was reactive but I didn't realise how much so until today. I had no real ideas or plan...even though the image above doesn't look like anything but some scrapes and smears and drips of paint, I now have an image in mind and I am ready to put more paint on...so exciting :)

A product...this year I bought a stencil cutter. It's nothing fancy, just kind of a modified soldering iron, it has a downward pointing tip and you can hold it like a pencil. It's been so useful. I love using stencils, but I often feel a bit limited by the ones you can buy. With this simple little tool I have really enjoyed making stencils using old pieces of acetate. Great fun. Cheers!



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