Sharing inspiration

Painting can feel like a solitary and introspective pursuit at times and it was good to break out of that recently when fellow painter Sarah Ball and I made time for a mini-painting retreat at her lovely studio near Frome.

We had no intention for our three days together other than to play, talk and let a painting process unfold. Both of us work from the landscape, so we knew there’d be some common ground.

We started with a warm-up mark-making activity, working on large rolls of paper and simply taking it in turns to suggest a word to inspire a mark. These papers became the start of a series of creative explorations. We found ourselves naturally bouncing ideas off each other for our next step. We worked with cutting, collaging, working into, changing and transforming these pieces.

We explored the idea of memory and walked Sarah’s local landscape, talking about what we each noticed in the environment. It was interesting to reflect on how we were each drawn to different features. The Spring colours were particularly vivid and back in the studio we worked to bring together our recollections in drawing, collage and paint.

It was a rich three days and both of us gained from the experience through talking, seeing each other’s working processes and critiquing our work.