Over the past few years, through regular practice, sometimes attending two life drawing classes a week, I have become much more confident in my drawing skills, particularly that of drawing the figure.

Although I have done quite a lot of painting over the years, I haven’t committed myself to regular consistent practice the way I have with drawing and so I have become less confident in my painting abilities.

To remedy this I would like to attempt to increase my painting practice. During a few recent life drawing sessions with the brilliant models Sophie and James I took the opportunity to practice my painting from life. This was challenging in lots of respects, including the strict time frames in which you get to put information down on the paper in paint.

Other challenges include working with colour and getting a likeness without the use of the fine lines and quick gestural marks you can achieve easily with a pencil.

One of the problems I have run into when it comes to my painting practice is that I often feel like I need to “finish” a painting. Whereas with a drawing, especially during life drawing sessions, I am much less precious about my sketches and view them as exercises in practicing my skills rather than as “finished” and complete art works.

I want to take this mentality over into my painting practice, aiming not for finished, polished “exhibition worthy” art works, but for the opportunity to just practice using paint and the process of painting itself. This more experimental attitude will hopefully reduce the pressure of expectation I put on myself and free myself up to improve my skills over small consistent efforts.

One of the things I’d like to develop is my “voice” as an artist in my paintings. I feel like I have developed my own style and language in my drawings so that they feel like they are mine- whereas with painting I am still at the stage of trying to find a way of painting that fits my personal form of expression. I have spent a lot of time learning painting skills and techniques from looking at other artists work and styles like impression, cubism, realism- but have yet to find a way of painting that feels natural to me.

Hopefully with more consistent, less pressured practice over the future months I will begin to find a flow and confidence in my painting abilities.