Day 8 to day 14 of the 100 day project

Moving on with my quest towards simplicity by using catalyst tools

I’m doing the 100 day project over on Instagram and posting daily a painting made on the previous day.  This project is something I have done twice before in 2018 and 2021. This year I have returned to an old favourite to kickstart the challenge. However as the days have progressed over this past week I made the decision to break the project down into bite sized subjects. So for the first 20 days it will all be about palm tree paintings. And then I will move onto something new to keep the challenge fresh and interesting to me so I have a better chance of completing it.

This week I continued painting the series of abstract palm trees that are filled with signature features, lots of movement and vibrant saturated colour. The abstractions have developed somewhat this week as I started to change the tools I was using to paint. Up until now my palm trees do follow a kind of formula and I’m keen to move the formula on. To do this I started to introduce some new tools into the painting process.

Catalyst tools are really lovely to paint with. They are quite versatile and enable a range of paint applications. You can spread buttery opaque swathes of paint, mix colours and layer the paints thickly or scrape back the layers to reveal the painting history. In addition the knives allow a variety of distinctive marks to be made either by jumping the tools across the page or slightly bending to create new shapes.

What these tools have done for the paintings is to enable me to rely less on finishing the palm paintings with myriad tiny dots. I love doing this but I’m also very keen to find new ways of using the palm tree subject as a vehicle for expression. I’m also on a gradual quest to simplify work. However this is a challenge to me as I really enjoy making finishing flourishes using tiny marks. I think  this week I have had some success but I’m not there yet. I crave more space when I look at my paintings but when I am painting I find it hard to resist adding detail.

Here are the paintings completed this week.

My obsession with the palm tree is life long one and I never tire of the way these cheery trees that dance in wind or radiate positivity associated with warmer climes can become a brilliant subject to express a variety of moods, emotions or give a sense of a place through use of colour and mark making.

If you would like to follow along on Instagram please do join me. I am using two hashtags 100dayprojectmaryprice which is a personal hashtag and 100daysofcolourjoy where some other artists including my friend Gaynor Leverett Jaques are also posting their 100 day project. The details for my Instagram are in the footer to this email below