Here are some details from an oil painting I am making currently from my Raggedy Plant oil pastel study. I’m enjoying the colour and movement within the piece and seeing where it all takes me. Watch this space! Note, the sections are jumbled up here!

Here’s the link to the page on Artipeeps website about the Anxiety and Release collaboration that I have been working on with the Canadian poet Rod Kok. It been a most unusual journey, and I’m still processing where I’m at with it all. Being primarily a painter and visual artist I find it difficult to put motivation into words, and sometimes think you shouldn’t try as responding visually is a language in itself. All art critics and historians should try to make art too I think! Anyway, here’s the link. I probably will say more about it all, but you can read about the development of my painting Spring Park Bench on this blog. http://artipeeps.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/off-my-feet-by-rod-kok-and-spring-park-bench-by-heather-burns-the-anxietyrelease-collaboration-2/

This was the original drawing that I took the cropped section from for the previous post. I always draw from life and was surprised that it was the stalk that interested me visually and not the large shiny leaves of this plant. I have to be aware and stay open to where the muse takes me, never force, but reveal. I am led by my drawing.

This is the second large study that I made. It came from an abstracted section of the raggedy plant stalk that I made a drawing of earlier this year. This feels much more like it. I have chosen the motif and subject myself, so this fits with my way of working. Having just completed another collaborative project it seems necessary to come back into myself and explore some of my own choices again. I find I need both to grow!

Here’s and oil-pastel study I made last week as a further exploration trying to uncover and decide what my next painting will be. I had a feeling I’d said all I wanted to say about the park though, and I was right. This doesn’t feel to be the one I’ll develop into a painting this holiday, maybe at some later date, we’ll see.

Here’s some of the painting I did on Monday on the piece for the Anxiety and Release collaboration for Artipeeps arts group from Cambridge. The final painting will be published on their website on 15th April along with the poet’s work that forms the other half of this creative venture. I’ve been feeling quite poorly this week with a kidney infection so wasn’t at my best when painting. I gave myself permission to do just a little. That worked well. I only painted for about half an hour but really enjoyed what I did. It must never become a chore. We all tend to push ourselves out of some misguided work ethic and don’t do our best stuff then. If we acknowledge when we don’t feel on top form, honour our bodies and our time we can do something even though it may not be as much as we’d hoped. We need to learn to accept ourselves just as we are at any given moment and know that we are doing our best. This painting is teaching me so much in so many ways. I loved the little bush that you can see in the detail. The way the leaves flickered in the spring breeze catching the light. So fragile. It always surprises me what takes my interest. Nature teaches us so much when we slow down enough to hear, see and feel.