The other thing that these paintings have made me think about is working in series.  When you present a series of works to a viewer, how much time do you want or expect them to spend looking at each individual painting?  And how much of the meaning comes from them making connections between the paintings, and responding to a mood that gets built up by looking at them as a set?  These questions may consciously or subconsciously influence my decisions about the level of finish or clarity that I give each individual painting.  If I’m viewing them as a group, then I must expect the viewer to as well.  And this will influence my decisions about how I hang them.  Do I create a cluster of them, or do I space them out with plenty room around each one?   This will also depend upon the space that I manage to get for my final show.

Dad's guitar

 Oil on paper 5″ x 7″

Another work in progress.  I’ve reached the point after a long period of not knowing what to do with these where I now want to work on them again.  I’ve been struggling with the balance between retaining the immediacy of my initial painted response to the photograph, and working it up into a more realised image.  After a period of looking at these on the studio wall, I realised than I do want to work them up a bit more.  I now have my work cut out to do this in time for them to dry before the show!

Finally, after a month of snow, ice and freezing temperatures, I made it back into the studio today.  I am now gearing up to prepare for my BA final show.  I had hoped to be able to take some of the little pictures in to college, but unbelievably they are still not dry.  Clearly oil paints cannot dry in sub-zero temperatures.

I did manage to pick up a paintbrush, and started two more of these little paintings.  I’ll post pictures tomorrow; I forgot my camera today. 

I am also trying to visualise how I will display them.  It is not enough just to paint pictures and hang them on the wall.  The way in which they are displayed, how they are organised, and the space that they are in will all affect the way they are experienced and read.  So I’ve started by doing a sketch to visualise how they might hang in a space.  I had an idea of painting the space a dark green/grey colour to create a sense of intimacy and delving into memory.  However, having painted a little sketch of how this might look, I’m not so sure.

I want to give the viewer a sense of surveillance – how perhaps snapshot photographs become a form of surveillance in the way that we experience them being taken, and being looked at afterwards.  Also, I wonder whether we use them as a form of self-surveillance.  Surely everyone sits up and pays more attention when they see a photo of themselves.  What are we thinking?  I know what I’m thinking most of the time – too fat, too grey, what-a-stupid-smile.

Not sure how this project will turn out, but I’ll blog it here as a way of helping me think about it.