Survival of the Fittest....

I painted a slightly controversial painting last week; Well, personally controversial as I couldn't decide whether to paint over it after I had 'finished' it or not. Often, if the painting can get through the night without me redoing it, or touching it up then it has a chance of surviving. If it is really bad then it just gets completely painted over pretty much instantly and I will try again the next day. If it is really, really bad then the black paint comes out and it will be obliterated.

Thankfully this doesn't happen too often. 

The problem comes with not pre-planning things, which is normally fine unless I start with an expectation. I had an expectation with this one, to paint something more abstract, calming, not busy and cleaner than typical - more blocks of colour, less lines.

This totally didn't happen.

I ended up painting something busy, hectic, stylistically mixed, dramatic, in your face, with non typical colours.

How did that happen? This is when you can tell how I was feeling when I painted it. I had too much on my mind, daydreaming about too many things and not being rigorous or concentrated with what I was doing. Mess in my head, mess on the canvas.

In need of inspiration I decided to ask my Facebook followers what they thought I should do with the painting and I got a mixed reception - some suggesting changes, some telling me to wait for a few days and see how I felt and others saying don't touch it, it is perfect. So I will leave it for now. I decided that if I did redo it it would end up being a different painting entirely, in which case I may as well just paint it again or do something else. I think it is easier to see what I was trying to do when you see the photograph I was working from, and I think it is easier to see where my paintbrush ran away to; Sometimes I have no control over the connection from my brain to my hand....

Look at that Foxy Cart...

Blogging on a Saturday! 

This is partly because I have just got back from lunch and I have that awkward amount of too much time and not enough time before I have to get ready to go out again. I also, more importantly, need to take a painting offline as I have just sold it! 

WAHOO! 

An unexpected sale always makes the day/week/month, seem a lot better. With the painting sale also comes the news that I have finally rolled out my new shopping cart! The one that I was meant to roll out before Christmas (last year, not this year unfortunately, otherwise how organised am I!?) but yes, it is finally up, and hopefully the UK supplied cushions will be up next week too! Boom. Look at me. 

To celebrate my shop going live I am offering a 10% discount on all items in stock using the code FOXYCART (who are my lovely new shop portal suppliers) so hurry up and get shopping at lauraholart.co.uk  

I feel like it has been a while since I have felt a little bit excited by my online store but I feel a bit more enthusiastic today. The hard work is starting to pay off. I have suppliers in store for everything except the tote bags. I have sorted out my vouchers and coupons so that they work online and sorted out the checkout process so that it charges for international shipping, sends an automatic purchase confirmation email and gives you bulk buy discounts automatically. I am beginning to feel like an actual legitimate business, not some adhoc making-this-up as I go along thing. I still am an adhoc making-this-up as I go along thing but I just look a bit more convincing. I am even starting to convince myself. I have had a lot of doubts recently. But today, I think we can do this. 

Morocco - a year on.

I heard back from 'Not on the High Street' about my application to sell with them and their response was a big fat no. Charming. One good thing about the fact that I have been doing this for a long time now is that I care slightly less. I literally still get rejected all the time. Almost every time I enter anything in fact, but well, who cares. I have sold things, and I can't not do it, each piece is a piece of me and they can't come out any other way. There is nothing right or wrong about it, love it or hate it, it doesn't matter either way - this is me (cue singing).

I'm happy with that.

Speaking of me, I was finally brave enough to tackle a painting of my trip to Morocco from April last year. Morocco blew my brains away. I climbed Mount Toubkhal, in the snow, at breathless altitude, on borrowed shoes, with blood sugar lows, enormous 'I can see your achilles heel' blisters and filled my shoes with blood. We were hiking through the Atlas Mountains for 6 or 7 days. I got the blisters about 3 hours in. I had elephant sized feet when I got off the plane back onto UK soil and it took two weeks before I could walk without hobbling.

The Atlas Mountains were beautiful, dusty, windy, snowy, cold, hot, red, white, isolated, desolate, culturally different, peaceful, empty, on top of the world, scenic, cloudy, I can touch the moon, bread filled, every day painful, painkiller crazy.

Marrakesh was a dusty, smelly, hot, people filled, busy, patterned, colourful, look at those tiles, pestered, rainy, peppermint tea drenched, loud, traffic, haggling, bustling, sensory overload.

I couldn't get my head around mixing these things together, let alone getting my head around the experience of the trip, the pain of my feet or reducing all these things into a painting. Processing it all has literally taken a year, and here is the first result - a mix of it all. I think I will let the painting speak for itself because I wouldn't even know where to start...