Marian Lishman, Artist

It’s 1st March and finally the sun is shining, the daffodils are in bloom and there is light at the end of the miserable wet and windy winter!

Things are really busy in the studio. I only have room for 2 paintings to dry at once as they have to dry completely flat (spirit level flat or else the paint will shift!) so I am constantly checking if paintings are dry enough to move out the way of the drying floor so that I can start more. Some paintings don’t actually work as I would like so that is a few days wasted (or not really wasted as it is all experience learnt from!) when that happens.

After selling the work I had in Ferini gallery in Pakefield, I had a couple of other commissions to do and paintings to take up there, so they now have a few of mine in. It is a lovely space with a wide variety of beautiful art so if you are nearby go and have a look.

Another commission I have taken on is a larger wave painting. This brings issues in itself as you cannot let resin level on a canvas that is bigger than about 60x 60cm as it will just pool in the middle. So for larger paintings it is necessary to use a wooden block frame or something similar. These block frames do require sizing and sealing so that will be a bit of extra work on top before the painting is even started! I’m looking forward to doing that commission though and seeing how it comes out.

Exhibition invitations are still coming in and I am adding them to the events section of the website.

I’ve had a lot of interest in black/white/grey/silver colour schemes so have been doing some of those recently. This is a recent commission that just went to it’s new home.

If you are interested in a commission or exiting artwork then drop me a line via my contact page or else you can see prices here.

2020 has kicked off and I think it is good to start the new year by making a few changes and one of those is to start documenting what I am up to in a blog. I may not add things very often but who knows, it might be of interest to people to read what I am up to!

Things do generally quieten down a bit in the winter with the majority of events I take part in being in spring and summer. There have been a few things going on recently which means that things have not come to a complete stop. I have some paintings in an exhibition in Halesworth at the New Cut which ends next week – it’s a really nice display of work with some really big paintings there in the cafe which make me want to size things up a bit! I went to the opening event and bumped into a few fellow artists there which was nice.

I also have a painting up in an exhibition in Pakefield at Ferini Gallery as part of the Suffolk Open Studios winter exhibition which ends in a couple of weeks.

I was disappointed not to get anything accepted into the Colchester Art Society exhibition before Christmas with some feedback being that paint pouring is a bit common and it sells well online. I have to say I disagree with the latter point as the paintings with resin on look sooo much better in the flesh (I can never get photos to do the paintings justice) and also it was a bit frustrating as I have been developing this technique in various forms since around 2006 so feel like I am one of the old school in fluid acrylics!

I have had a few commissions ongoing too since late last year so have been working on getting those done. It’s quite difficult to do commissions in this medium as the paint often has ideas of its own and you can only guide it a certain amount and the rest is a little bit out of your control!

Talking of Suffolk Open Studios, as the website administrator I have had a fair bit of work to do on that as the application process is now open for artists to open their studios in June 2020. I have decided not to open my studio this year for various reasons (my studio is quite small so last year I shared with Emma Garnham which was great but she is having to move studio this year) so I am just going to be an associate member this year but it is a great way to network with other artists and hear about opportunities.

I’ve just had the forms through for the Needham Market exhibition which takes part at Easter so I will be taking part in that as that has often been a good venue for me, plus I must get some more greeting cards done for it.

As an artist, I often go through stages of what I want to paint and although I will still be doing more wave type paintings this year, I am also planning to go back to doing some abstract textured paintings. In addition to having some ideas on paintings in that style, I also have some canvases that I have used for fluid acrylic paintings that have not worked, that I need to restretch the canvas on, and those won’t be suitable for fluid paintings as the canvas won’t be taut enough, so I can use those for textured ones.

Last year I had more exhibitions than ever that I took part in and this year is likely to be no different so I’ll need to make sure I start painting soon as I still haven’t got as much stock as I would like since selling a large number of paintings at Art on the Prom last September.