After the exigencies of Christmas we’ve now got lockdown to face again. Weeks stretched out in front of me. I had to do something to occupy those hours and days. There was sewing I could do but nowhere to buy fabric; I’ve done walking; I’ve done baking and cooking; I write all the time so what’s left? I’d watched gentle Bob Ross paint pictures in half an hour (and if you haven’t, then you should) so I knew you could get lots of pleasure from painting. I had seen Portrait Artist of the Year on TV and those brushes crammed in jars and palettes thick with oil paint seduced me. How hard can it be, I thought, and found a box of pastels long hidden in a drawer.
I began.
I copied a picture I bought several yeas ago attracted by its strong colours and movement. I sketched it out in pencil and then used the pastels. I’m not familiar with them and I didn’t like the way I had to shade them with my fingers to get the colour I needed, so that it felt like finger painting without the pleasure of a gooey mess. I was careful at first until I abandoned technique and went with the flow and scribbled and daubed with dash and brio.
I wasn’t pleased with the result; it was less Albrecht Durer and more Jackson Pollock. It was not going to be another Van Gogh, and Grayson Perry, the nation’s favourite Artist and new National Treasure, was not about to have his title usurped by me. Perhaps pastels weren’t my metier, perhaps I needed a different medium: charcoal, water colour, oil paint? There were some oil paints in DH’s study and I found the tubes of paint, the bottle of turps, the pad of paper. I stopped; it all felt like too much faff and the bottom line was that I hadn’t enjoyed ‘making art’ enough to continue.
I read the Radio Times instead. The Pottery Throw Down was due to start again. I could buy some clay online … find a large overall … I could borrow a kiln … I could be the next Bernard Leach …
Or I could just spend my time drinking tea, eating biscuits, cruising social media and telephoning friends and family. No contest really.
