Identifying what makes each painting unique - Alice Sheridan: contemporary artist

I find working on more than one painting at once helpful for a few things:

• it stops me becoming obsessive and overworking one endlessly (hopefully)
• it helps me to see an overall view of my work and how it’s developing
• working on one painting can often inform another – if you do something new or exciting, then you can learn from that and it may help you take risks on others.

Spotting differences…

I’m also very aware that I want each painting to be unique. There be a cohesiveness to a group of work, but each painting must stand alone. My biggest fear as an artist is becoming formulaic. I am developing a preferred way of working and we each have our own personal sensitivity we respond, but each painting moves with its own personality.

As I’m working I need to be aware of how that’s developing and ‘listen’ to what the painting is trying to say. This can mean time spent in the ‘thinking chair’ and I also keep a studio journal of notes. This is useful, particularly if a painting is stuck and I don’t know where to go next but it also helps me to identify what I am picking up within each painting, and what I may want to hide or develop…

I thought you may like to see some of my thoughts as I started work one day which I shared live on my Facebook page, which should play directly below:

So I’m looking out for what may have arrived by chance and guiding those discoveries into a painting which works. Informed intuition if you like. Keep in touch if you would like to see how these paintings ended up, they will be shown at the Talented Art Fair in 17-19 March 2017 and information about them will go out first to those on my mailing list.

To catch more live video and join in the conversation you can find my Facebook page here or see this video on FB by clicking the image below: