Painting again

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to exhibit and hopefully sell some paintings at a one day event in London. I put a lot of work in to building up a new body of work for it, but in the event it didn't go as well as I'd hoped for a number of reasons. I think I burned out a bit then and haven't felt the draw to paint again since. Until this last week.

I found a new blog recently which lead me to the site of US artist Joel Henriques. Like me, he finds inspiration from the likes of Miro and Calder, so his work had immediate appeal, but one thing I really liked was the texture he creats in many of his works. It got my juices flowing again so I got out my paints and started layering up a canvas, just experimenting with the texture to see where I could take it.

Then we got a call from some old and very dear friends to let us know they were moving to one of their favourite places, several hours further away from us. It's a wonderful opportunity for them and I'm very happy for them, but we'll get to see them less which is a little sad. Still, happy times for them. Some five years ago they asked me if I'd do a painting for them for their kitchen after they rennovated it. I promised, and came up with a sketch for an image I really wanted to produce for them, but the revamp never happened and neither did the painting.

So last night I got to pull the two things together, finishing off the background texture to fit the image then painting it on. I really enjoyed it. It seems that getting out the paints again was a good thing. I hope our friends like their housewarming gift.