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)