More abstration

After a day of not feeling well, I finished this piece which is based on another artists work, came MaryAnneShakyHand who created geometric art which I think is lovely

It helps me to focus when my attention span is all over the place, and I love how the flow of colour on the page is enhanced by the individual colours in the geometric shapes.

This one is in pen an dink with the colour from coloured watercolour pencils, but the next one to do is one with acrylic paint as well, just to see the contract

 Weekends rest

Its almost the weekend, and time to rest and recover, without the early starts, travelling, long days and late nights back.

To spend some time with these lovelies will be a pleasure

the week after my mums ashes were spread in the sea from the beach she loved

Many things make you realise how fragile life is, and how easy it is to just meander along without a care and suddenly everything changes.

So, enjoy the rest this weekend. I for one will be doing some art and watching rugby, and reading book 3 of the Book of Dust series by Philip Pullman

Patterns and Shapes

I haven't really done any artwork for a while but I've been doodling with pen on paper as going to try some line art, shapes and architectural type of lines to bring out the picture I have in my head.

Back working full time so a bit knackered in the week to do anything, so it'll be weekend activity really.

I want to make pictures without shading, without any forced texture and only use parallel lines to see how it turns out

wish me luck.

I sometimes find my lack of art training catches me out and shows my inexperience and lack of ability, but on the other hand im quite happy to try anything - well, except for oil painting.  think I need to do something formal with that so that its not a bogeyman for me as it currently is

 Darker Artwork

A number of years ago I went through a period of drawing much darker drawings and the same with the paintings I was doing.  

There was lots going on in the background which caused this, or that made my emotions react in this way, but these are some of the things I produced.

I think that when my emotions are going a bit wild in a good or bad way, then I do my best work, and when im flat in any way, whether just moseying along, or flat through exhaustion or emotional overload, I can't create anything really, and what I do looks forced

 Painters Block

I know writers always talk about writers block as the sudden stopping of inspiration to write, and how debilitating it is for them, and how it isn't linked to anything particular - but just happens.

Well, there is definitely something called Painters Block and that's me right now. So I'll just talk about some of the amazing art stuff I saw at Latitude last weekend, not painting related per se, but art and literature definitely.

It was a great festival this year and is the first time Ive been in nearly 10 years, so I was a but uncertain about the whole thing, going there on my own completely, as previously Ive been with a group of people.  But it was a good laugh. The neighbours in the camp site were a laugh, and the facilities the best Ive ever seen, with toilets and showers clean, usable and the water hot at any time I went to the shower.  Queues for them were long but that only meant a 40 minute wait, which wasn't horrendous.

The camp site was about 1km from the main entrance, so I got a lot of walking in this year (50km in total), which was a good counter to the excellent food that was on sale.  Not too expensive either.

This is also the first year I have watched more in other tents than the main arena or the music tents, watching a lot of literature, poetry, podcasts and discussions by authors.  I found that really interesting, especially the podcast recordings that were done on  site.

I think that the most interesting one was by a charity called Tender, who work in schools, amongst other places, to support teachers and kids in acting for healthy relationships, dealing with toxic masculinity, and worse within classes https://tender.org.uk/). 

The other session I really enjoyed was Luke Wright who is a poet from Essex Ive seen before but this was really enjoyable. ( https://www.lukewright.co.uk/).

Musically I saw Sting, Fatboy Slim, Elbow, and others but I think by favourite was Pale Waves who were just right for the afternoon, prior to the Euro Finals which was shown on the large screens in the site, and watching the Lionesses beat Spain in the final. That was such a fitting ending to the festival for me, and I ended up heading back after Elbow, and enjoyed a relaxing drive back, relaxing in my own bed that night.

Will have to see how I feel about going next year....

Now to hope that the painters block goes away soon or the half done canvases will just gather more dust

Beginnings

Putting things down onto paper, for me, is always a really good way for me to collect my thoughts, be they confused to anyone else, to make sense of something - life, death, grief, loss, pain, joy...everything, and to help find the way through the seemingly unfathomable mess to get to the other side.

It has never ended up where I think its going to end up. 

A bit like my painting. 

I get an idea in my head, that's about it. Just the kernel of it. Call it a seed, the neurons in my head sparking in a way that they hadn't before.

Colour, or motion or expression of an emotion - and there always has to be emotion to be able to turn paint and water into something meaningful - whatever it starts as just develops. 

Thats why I say so on the social reels, just saying how its started and taking myself on a journey.  More often than not (and I have a pile of paintings and drawings to show this) they end up as a mess of dark colour, of blind alleys or failures, and I leave them ‘to come back to it later‘ -  but in reality I have no idea where its going to end, or what its going to look like in the end.

So, I thought Id start a blog, becoming another of those arty types who think what they say is important (its not) and that way they create is the next best masterpiece (its not - although I do hope it could be, obviously)

In case you read this far, my paintings are currently on Instagram ( @ian_hammond_artist ) but I am building a website so they will be there after that 

So, here goes ....

These were some of my earliest artworks (that I still have or have photos of)