Colour me happy

I'm back painting again, and loving it. Did I ever tell you how much I love playing with colour?

Ah yes, I did!

What struck me yesterday as I was busy "getting stuck" was nothing less than a revelation. I'd heard it before. But never really live it very often in my painting - but whenever I do, magic happens. So I thought I'd share it here.

What if I can't make any mistakes?

No, this is not woo-woo hippy-shit. It's true. The painting, or the book or whatever, if you are creating it from your own depths, has no way that it is supposed to be, supposed to look... it can be whatever it turns out to be. There are no mistakes. Really. Truly!

There is only creating. And re-creating. And re-creating. And re-creating. Until you decide to stop. I wrote a lot about the creative process in The Rainbow Way. And now I am really living it. I usually have to write stuff to get it into a deeper part of my consciousness.

So here is how I have been playing with colour this past couple of days. All in varying stages of "completion"...

Working over underpainting can be scary - you get attached to what is, and nervous that you will ruin it all. That's why this one has been paused for so many months. But courage in hands it has gone from this...

To this...

This one needs to be seen in person - the colours just put me into a trance... I had SO much fun doing it. It's called Rainbow Tapestry.

I shared this one on Facebook last week, but not on here... it's called Tree Sisters,  inspired by the organisation Tree Sisters. It's nearly done...

This one is probably going to be for the next issue of JUNO magazine, to go alongside a feature on girls' rites of passage. She emerged this morning. After months of underpainting going nowhere, she still has quite a way to go, but I love the movement, and the patterns on her dress, being echoed by what will probably be butterflies wings, against the rich, flat gold.

And this is one I did for last summer's exhibition, as everyone seemed to love watermelon pictures, and I sold my first. It was too simple, it didn't sell, so now it's going in a more cherry blossom polka dot direction! Still a way to go, but the colours make me feel so summery, it's a hard one to photograph in the morning sunshine!