Or at least, so we’re told. Today has been a bit like that. I’ve started a new picture (on the canvas I made for myself!) even though I have no idea how it will finish. The bottom half is quite a strong image, and I’m really quite confident that it will work. The top half, however, is vague to say the least. I felt that I could postpone work indefinitely waiting for everything to fall into place. The area about which I’m unsure, however, is going to be largely sky, and in the nature of the case it would not really be possible to resolve issues of composition and balance in sketches. I will have to work it out actually on the canvas.
I think the risk is going to pay off. Having blocked in fairly crudely the lower half at least it has become clear that one possible solution I had in mind would not work. I guess that’s a kind of progress.
There will be at least one and possibly two days before I can get back to it. We are going to London for the day tomorrow, with the principal intention of seeing the current exhibition at the Estorick Collection. This is a really interesting establishment. Founded by an expatriate American sociologist, turned art collector, and his wife, it specialises in Italian modern art. They have some really good exhibitions there, as well as items from their permanent collection. The current show is by the Futurist Gererado Dottori. I have a long-term and continuing interest in Italian modern art, most of which is hardly known outside of Italy. We have a good train service between Bradford and London, so it is possible to make this kind of short-term expedition every now and then. Tomorrow we are certainly going to “travel hopefully”, and I don’t have much doubt that we will “arrive” …. both literally and metaphorically.