Excellent idea for a post Donegal gal! Can I ask whether the decision on when the work is complete is sometimes tricky? For example, was stage 4 (above), necessarily incomplete to your eye? [mine is untrained] And do you sometimes press on with a piece just to see what will develop, disregarding ideas of completion/finality?
sometimes I continue on until the painting is nearer to mud than art!Interesting that you should spot that stage 4 was a ‘staging post’. It actually stayed like that for a month or so, but I didn’t like it very much. This canvas was then used for a trying out of a new style I was attempting. The new style involved using many thin layers of paint, sometimes with a roller. I wasn’t sure how it was going to pan out, so I decided to use an old dry acrylic painting that I didn’t like as a starting point.In the event the final painting was better than I expected and has since been sold!This multi layered style is now the basis for my work with oil and cold wax medium, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the American artist, Rebecca Crowell, from whom I have learnt the technique, and with whom I am attending a weeks workshop in County Mayo this November
Nice and direct with your opening response to my question – I like your style. In the past I too have noticed a tendency to ‘boil my cabbage twice’ as they say up in Yorkshire. [Don’t they call it ‘painting legs on a snake’ in the Far East?] But maybe I misunderstand the over-working you speak of. I used to live with a painter and would love to watch her working away at surfaces – priming, applying, rubbing away, thinning with white spirit, re-applying, obliterating, pasting, scraping (I don’t know the technical terms), but it was like watching magic being performed or something. She worked in oil only so this process occurred over a period of months (drying time). To me, it was all very mysterious and I began to form an appreciation of the huge amount of work that can be involved in painting abstractions (and how bloody hard is to sell them). I will check out Rebecca Crowell, as I’m fascinated by all this. Thank you for the insight on your working processes, and glad you sold the painting with the ghost beneath.
It’s sort of been a Donegal weekend here in Glastonbury. Looking at and contemplating upon your work meant I only got 4 hrs. sleep last night, but I seem to have been energised with the viewing – so thank you. We’re building up here for the big performing arts festival that starts in a couple of weeks, and I somehow get swept up in the energy of that too. So you’re not entirely to blame! As to ‘astute comments’, then I doubt that very much. I’m an unknowledgeable enthusiast who doesn’t mind asking the dumb questions – that is all. Best, Hariod.
Glasto!Of course!My son goes most years, but he’s missing it this year for our big family celebration of my husbands 60th birthday. We are all celebrating in a youth hostel in Wales, then walking up Cader Idris the next day 🙂 goodnight Hariod, hope you get a better nights sleep tonight
donegallizdoyle 
thank you
Excellent idea for a post Donegal gal! Can I ask whether the decision on when the work is complete is sometimes tricky? For example, was stage 4 (above), necessarily incomplete to your eye? [mine is untrained] And do you sometimes press on with a piece just to see what will develop, disregarding ideas of completion/finality?
sometimes I continue on until the painting is nearer to mud than art!Interesting that you should spot that stage 4 was a ‘staging post’. It actually stayed like that for a month or so, but I didn’t like it very much. This canvas was then used for a trying out of a new style I was attempting. The new style involved using many thin layers of paint, sometimes with a roller. I wasn’t sure how it was going to pan out, so I decided to use an old dry acrylic painting that I didn’t like as a starting point.In the event the final painting was better than I expected and has since been sold!This multi layered style is now the basis for my work with oil and cold wax medium, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the American artist, Rebecca Crowell, from whom I have learnt the technique, and with whom I am attending a weeks workshop in County Mayo this November
Nice and direct with your opening response to my question – I like your style. In the past I too have noticed a tendency to ‘boil my cabbage twice’ as they say up in Yorkshire. [Don’t they call it ‘painting legs on a snake’ in the Far East?] But maybe I misunderstand the over-working you speak of. I used to live with a painter and would love to watch her working away at surfaces – priming, applying, rubbing away, thinning with white spirit, re-applying, obliterating, pasting, scraping (I don’t know the technical terms), but it was like watching magic being performed or something. She worked in oil only so this process occurred over a period of months (drying time). To me, it was all very mysterious and I began to form an appreciation of the huge amount of work that can be involved in painting abstractions (and how bloody hard is to sell them). I will check out Rebecca Crowell, as I’m fascinated by all this. Thank you for the insight on your working processes, and glad you sold the painting with the ghost beneath.
thanks again Hariod, I am delighted and flattered that you have spent so much time perusing my site and making such astute comments. Best, Liz
It’s sort of been a Donegal weekend here in Glastonbury. Looking at and contemplating upon your work meant I only got 4 hrs. sleep last night, but I seem to have been energised with the viewing – so thank you. We’re building up here for the big performing arts festival that starts in a couple of weeks, and I somehow get swept up in the energy of that too. So you’re not entirely to blame! As to ‘astute comments’, then I doubt that very much. I’m an unknowledgeable enthusiast who doesn’t mind asking the dumb questions – that is all. Best, Hariod.
Glasto!Of course!My son goes most years, but he’s missing it this year for our big family celebration of my husbands 60th birthday. We are all celebrating in a youth hostel in Wales, then walking up Cader Idris the next day 🙂 goodnight Hariod, hope you get a better nights sleep tonight