Will there be cake?

I wish I’d said that, it’s such a good question, but it was Colonel Jack O’Neill. I won’t explain who that is, you can look it up.

So here I go, first post ever, charging into the blogosphere, inspired by an article in International Artist (which I recommend for all amateur artists; I don’t know about the professionals, as I’m not one of them. I imagine they don’t have time to read magazines and instead spend all day in their lucious, sunlit gardens, drinking wine and creating great works of art. Who tends their gardens though? My own painting time is cut into by having to oil the garden furniture or fix the shed door (again)).

Arists should try writing (they wrote, in the magazine article): there must be something you can write about? And made the very relevant point that if Vermeer had had a blog then whilst he might have been able to write “hey, I’m a genius”, a few times, it would wear even for him. We wouldn’t take it. Tell us something interesting, something I can learn from, or just make me laugh. Otherwise I’m outta here, I’ve got Facebook friends to talk to and funny pictures to like.

I can do angst. I’m pretty certain that I can do that thing. The tortured (amateur) artist struggling with their own limitations, that sort of style. I’ve noticed that it’s a common theme for anyone trying to do something artistic, that the ideas in our heads don’t come out quite the way we want them to, at least not on a regular basis. And then even if you are happy with the end result, and have gone so far as to trot off to the print shop and run up a few prints to flog to anyone professional outlets, after a few months you’ll look at the picture again and think: nah, could do better.

Thus, angst. But constructive angst, hopefully. I did what the authors suggested and wrote down a few ideas. And lo, the sun shone on my brain, a mote of creativity struck through the smog of everyday cotton-wool, and I discovered that I could burble on about one or two things that, whilst probably not exactly new, might give someone, somewhere a small mental hug, a feeling that they aren’t alone, that somewhere there is someone else trying to paint and not succeeding terribly well.

Oh, and keep your first post short, they said. So that was a fail.

Next post will not be from rainy Stockholm, it will be from the rainy Isle of Man, where I will be fighting with the challenge of painting with water media in one of the wettest countries in the world! An umbrella will be required.