This is my new piece which I finished over the weekend.

This is a few days in January. Judging by the colours in this, it is clear this is when we had a fair bit of snow!

This is mostly grey and the rules I created for this piece were to have bright colours as thin as possible and it to be predominantly grey stripes. Any colours were to punctuated lines of jewels.

When completed I could see a focus point of jewel colours which I decided to varnish over. This is a very subtle difference and unless it is under very strong, angled lighting (which I don’t have) I can’t really tell if it is worth it. However, I like how it brings focus to those colours and in many respects makes the title more ambiguous.

In reality the title is about my annoyance at the loss of colour around me when it snowed – I was moaning on and on about how boring everything looked (once the initial thrill had worn off) now there was no colour in the world. However, this can be read in whichever way the viewer wishes it to be. It could be about drugs (the recreational and medication types), a lover, sugar, carbs – anything you could withdraw from. Also, that once the temperature rose by a few degrees all the colour came back as the snow melted and withdrew.

My colour matching in paint is getting better – but some colours I still have to make several attempts at. I have also been trying out new techniques to get straight lines. In the canvas board panels I did (She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not) it was easy to use a metal ruler and get a pretty decent straight line (not too perfect – otherwise what is the point of painting it?) but on the stretched canvases, the pressure on the stretched fabric makes it sag. This leads to paint escaping under the ruler in a blob – just like it does with masking tape.

I purchased an architect’s ruler, which has scales on it, but most importantly is Y shaped, so has minimum pressure on the canvas (meaning paint doesn’t stick to the ruler underneath if it is not quite dry) as only 2 thin pieces of metal are in contact with the surface and there is an easy handle to remove it with, which allows a better line. Still not good enough though. At some points on the canvas, the fabric has to be supported underneath as it still ‘gives’ far too much. More paint means less pressure, but blobs. Less paint means more pressure and an unevenness of colour and wobbly line. More practice needed.