And pause...

[gallery type="square" ids="1027,1030,1031,1046,1047,1048"] There's a period of time between finishing one collection of work and starting on the next where you suddenly lose momentum and focus.  You've been so focused on the last exhibition that you hadn't given any thought, real thought to the next one.  You may have the odd image that you really want to tackle but can it be the start of a collection of paintings which will look cohesive when hung together? And then the sun comes out and well the garden looks so pretty and hell fire the day job can be a little demanding... but hold on what am I thinking I only have the weekends free for painting and there is only 3 months until the next exhibition.... See what I mean? around in circles but you can always guarantee that I end up beating myself up for even contemplating a painting free weekend. This period of time I always find difficult and find that I have this strange ritual of clearing the studio, tidying it up - well I guess it generally is a bit of a shambles after a 2-3 month stint of painting.  Still it is a bit odd but I have to do the obsessive compulsive thing of clearing, cleaning, de-cluttering and then sussing out what my canvas stock is, what images I have and it builds from there. So the next exhibition is the The Old Grammar School in Otley and well it's a biggie for me as it's a solo exhibition... But I'm very excited about it, although at the same time daunted by the amount of space to fill and not wanting to disappoint Zack who took that leap of faith to launch a brand new gallery at the time when so many were struggling. Still I've done my clearing up and checked what canvases I have and what sizes I want to use, sized up the space to fill and just got on with it and well yes I've done it, I've put paint to canvas. The only other thing to do now, well apart from completing quite a number of new paintings, is to decide on what the exhibition is to be called.... I may need to come back to that one! TOGS exhibition starts on 31 August and is throughout September.