I'm having a bit of a painter's block!

After my exams every year I do a big piece of artwork (as this is the only time I get to do them these days). It's been a tradition of mine since my GCSEs (16). Well I didn't actually wait until the exams were over I just didn't revise! Good times...

Anyway it's my finals (and probably last proper exams) and I want to do a huge, technically challanging piece of work. But can I think of anything? No.

At the moment I' thinking of doing acylic on canvas as it is cheap and easy. Although I am considering mixed media to give it an extra dimension, probably collage, gutta or gilding.

I usually do portraits of animals and people, together or seperate, my favourites being bands and horses. I don't really have the attention span for backgrounds, landscapes or anything inorganic.

So with that wee bit of background does anybody have any ideas?

Words, pictures, poems, songs, your own work...anything!

Cheers!

frangipanis

I just saw your painting on the link and you have loads of talent and creativity... I adore cats. You're a biochemist? That's great

jrebel7

Temp, I probably live in a less complex city than you do. Our town isn't exposed to enough art and artist are really appreciated in their endeavors to liven up the downtown area with color and expression of town history or a tribute to someone. Sounds like you have "been there, done that". It is OLD HAT to you. Once I have created a piece, I generally like to move on to something else also. Keep us posted. I will be interested to view what you decide on for this project.

What mixed medias have you worked in previously? I need a little inspiration myself to move into some new areas of creativity so reading all these ideas are getting me a little pumped to get off my duff and get busy! Thanks for the inspiration.

tomterm8

Hm... maybe you are expecting the work to be too perfect? That's often the case with artists block. i would get out a pencil and go for a walk. Stop every couple of minutes, and draw anything you see. Spend no more than a few minutes on each drawing. Bin em when you get home.

templelane

jreble I will definitely go back to murals one day, I just kinda lost interest after being separated from my friends, we were a really good team. There is nothing better than using everybody's strengths to produce a synergistic result. Maybe one day we'll do a reunion!

Tomterm8
I think one day perfectionism will kill me! It is definitely one of those equally cursed and blessed part of a person's personality. It an make you do great thing or it can completely cripple you. I'm going to do that walk thing, I'm quiet voyeuristic I like ot draw people in public places when they don't know I am. Airports are great for this, the range of body language is fantastic.

Jreble A cool mixed media thing I like to do is sketching, scanning and printing on tracing paper. When you print on tracing paper it looks really cool (you have to set the printer to draft to avoid overloading with ink). Or you can overload the ink and then work into it when it is wet with a brush/fingers or a blender. Then when you scan the tracing paper print the light interacts with it very strangely. You can produce really ethereal pieces. Due to the iterative process you can get more than one piece and really manipulate the image.

Other things I like to use is silk painting gutter on cardboard or any other surface, or in paintings to add dimension. There are loads of medias you can mix that you are not technically supposed to. I did gouache paint with oil pastel the other day and it worked quiet well. I can think of tons more if you are interested, some stranger one as well, fruit and screws/tacks and nails is a good destressor if nothing else.

You seem to mix up your surfaces a lot already which is really cool.

Here is a great artist for mixing things up have a look at his altered books.
Tom Phillips: Sculpture&Mixed Media
EDIT A Humument
If anyone has some spare time I would recommend browsing his work

This link has soe other people's take on the same idea
altered books

This thread has really been a great help so far! I have started to get into everything again. I really did miss just chatting about art