Email to Mary

What would you paint if you were free to spend what you liked on brushes paint canvas, paper etc? Would it be large, small? bold, delicate? Abstract or real? What would happen if you took three colours, put them out, and put on some favourite music and let the hand to the painting, completely shut off your mind? Try it... you can do it! Take a red, a yellow, a blue. Now let yourself pick one or two more colours. Put the rest away. Don't think about mixing. Just paint... and paint... and paint. And when you think it is finished, paint some more. Paint over it. Add to it. Decorate it. Fill it up completely. Write the date on the back, and put it away. Look at it again in three weeks time. Stand back and analyse it. See what it says to you about colour, feeling, mood, story, about you and your relationship with paint. Try to read it. It is a text, about you, about your relationship with paint, about many other things. Do you want to be freer? Do you want it more tidy? Would you like less, or more on the canvas/paper? Would you change a colour? Now take another, and put on music that is appropriate for that day. Take something from the first painting, and put it onto the second page. Then turn the first one around so you can't see it, and paint, paint, paint. When you have finished, look at the two together. What is happening?