Above board

All it takes
© 2011 Stewart Bremner
Mixed media, 3x5"

Last week, I worked on three 16x20" canvases. Two of them went well and were more or less completed by the end of the week, however there was one that I simply couldn't find an end to. The piece stayed hanging on my painting spot, as I watched and watched, wondering if I was done with it. I could not work out how to move forward.

Heat© 2011 Stewart Bremner
Mixed media, 3x5"

Reaching such a sticking point is not an uncommon occurrence, however finding a way to break from it can be tricky. It is an event that somehow is easily forgotten after it has passed and so I do not have a plan in place to combat it. As luck would have it, an amiable and at times out-spoken ex-Texan came to my rescue.

Want
© 2011 Stewart Bremner
Mixed media, 3x5"

Linda Sheets is one of the Underground's studio artists and this weekend sees the end of her month-long exhibition there, The Dog and Monkey Show. Linda is known for her scratchboard work and her current show, as the title suggests, was a lot of fun. Sometime around the middle of the week, she gave me a half dozen small scratch boards to work on. It was exactly what I needed to shake me from my inactivity. As soon as I started working on those small boards, all six of which are pictured here, a flow began that lasted the week.

We do it all
© 2011 Stewart Bremner
Mixed media, 3x5"

Making art on such a small scale was an interesting and fun challenge. I also greatly enjoyed the solidity of working on board, after using canvas for the past few weeks. I realised that canvas is not the ideal medium for how I am working at present, that I need a ground that I can work into, one that I can scratch and score and mark. Canvas simply will not provide that ground.

It will all work out
© 2011 Stewart Bremner
Mixed media, 3x5"

It was with this realisation in mind, that I got some larger boards and spent the rest of the week working on them. I'm pleased with the work I produced, which all fits as part of my Hidden Messages series. Next week is First Thursday at the Underground and I plan to show this work in my borrowed studio. If you are in the area, please come along and say hello. I'm in the first studio on the right before the galleries.

Be alone
© 2011 Stewart Bremner
Mixed media, 3x5"