Being 'in-the-moment' - an exploration into Expressionism

The student who paints with me on Tuesdays and I have been exploring 'Expressionism' for the last two weeks.

Artists like Van Gough and Kandinsky painted in this style. Another term for it is 'Fauvism'. It's where you use intense raw colours, wild brush work, abstracted subjects broken down to their simplest forms and loads of emotion (portraying emotion through the use of colour).

When doing today's painting I initially wanted to convey the idea of 'denial' - the background is made up of turbulent reds and blacks and deep Ultramarine blue all wound up in horizontal chaos yet there is the girl on the swing - fiery hair flung out in loose abandon, clothed in gold and yellow (colours of happiness and joy and wealth) and a touch of orange (excitement and spirituality), shoes flung off goodness knows where as she totally casts off the world and all it's cares.

After I finished painting I hung it on the wall for a bit to see what title would fit it best.

The more I looked the more I realised this is not a painting about 'denial' of life and it's problems. It is a painting about living in the moment, and maxing out on life.

For a start the girl is on the upward rise, not the downward fall of the swing. Her legs are outstretched, taking her higher, lifting her beyond her limitations. I was reminded of a child. When a child is on a swing they are totally lost in the moment - carefree and full of abandon. The cares of the world cease to exist. They are completely free.

So here it is - today's work

Simply titled - "Being 'in-the-moment'"

November Exhibition Preparations - Marketing week

Have set side this week to get all of the marketing side of things organised so that next week I can concentrate purely on choosing which paintings are going to be displayed and doing a 'mock hanging' to get the layout right. I am sharing an area with a friend of mine so we need to ensure our work looks right together before exhibition day arrives.

Yesterday I spent the morning revamping the old business cards and turning some of this years paintings into greeting cards to sell at the exhibition. I've also started putting together a portfolio on each work that people will be able to browse through as they come to my part of the exhibition (it's a group one of about forty artists and crafts people from the region).

Today I have a student coming to paint with me in the afternoon so no time to work on marketing. Tomorrow's task is to begin laying out a brochure. Publisher is such an asset! It was so easy to go and make changes yesterday to the business cards and run them through my printer - I dread to think the cost if I had used commercial printers.