Double trouble

The smaller one of these just wasn’t working out, the hand and foreshortening beat me so I started again and I’m so glad I did, the colours and pose are working so much better in the bigger one. Painting satin is so satisfying, it’s bliss! I had no idea how different the colours were in the two paintings until they were side by side. Wish it would dry, I’m itching to carry on!

Angry people of the internet

I wonder who they are, these randomly angry people who live on my screen. Over time I seem to have found a way to avoid them at source- the fountain of righteous fury.. I have two settings- the first absurdly tolerant and nurturing with a desperate need for understanding of even strangers’ motivation and emotions, the second- angry headmistress. The point at which I switch isn’t easy to predict but it’s often when I’m challenged about my motives or rudely propositioned by someone with serious entitlement issues.

I’m sure I get more than my fair share of messages in uppercase lettering. Without the internet I’m sure I’d get red ink letters. But why? What is it these people get out of relentlessly hunting down things they don’t like and getting themselves in a state about it?  I understand the need to see the other side of an argument. I watch documentaries about genocide, read articles about cruelty, listen to Pink Floyd or Justin Bieber songs. Not for fun but because I like to have knowledge about these things rather than turn away or not be able to an express an informed opinion.

Why though do people go out of their way to seek out political, religious or sexual subjects where perfectly rational lucid people discuss issues only ro ramble incoherently in capital letters. At least formulate a calm and reasoned argument, or frankly it looks ridiculous and lessens any valid point you might have. Don’t stalk me on facebook waiting for me to post up a picture with a flash of nipple so you can report it, don’t make new profiles with stock photos of shiny models so you can scream at me in capital letters, you’re not going to change my mind on anything that way. Tell me calmly using whole sentences exactly what it is about my work which upsets you or why you think it makes me a bad person and I’ll do my best to understand.

Then I’ll tell you why you’re wrong

sexy purple shoes

They’re delicious! I painted them before but I made them pink so I painted them again on a smaller scale.

purple is sexy

Decluttering

I’ve been dreaming strange dreams. I woke up really quite traumatised today. For some reason it really made me want to get up at stupid o clock and look through all my half finished paintings and make some hard decisions. Sometimes it makes me laugh to drive around and look for the kind of public bins or skips that people go to to look for free goodies and leave paintings there, just imagining the look on someone’s face as they find an unexpected erotic painting.

Some paintings just never work out. I suppose they would if I persevered but if I fall out of love with them too soon I just have to give up. I can think of two I want to keep , I think it’s really time to let go of the others. They take up so much space and they just make me feel guilty hanging around pleading with me to finish them.

I’ve said this a lot of times though- I may now get all my canvases out, look at them and put them away again. I need someone to do it for me so I can’t get sentimental!

Why the pseudonym?

I have two children, boys who are still at school. I became aware that they might not be comfortable with my social networking as a painter of this particular subject matter overlapping with theirs so I decided on a name. Infact I stole it. Joanna was my best friend when I was little. She was a bit of a tearaway frankly and I don’t know what became of her. I took the surname from a childhood crush I was unfortunately destined to have a doomed affair with and now I resent the name but I’m stuck with it.

It’s not a secret, everyone knows who I am and what I do, I’m not ashamed of it. I just don’t want it to appear on my childrens’ facebook wall. That’s all.

Do you get turned on when you’re painting?

This one is the funniest really. It’s the one most about wishful thinking other than “do you paint in the nude?” If I wanted to make more money and sell my soul I’d say “oh yeah baby as soon as I pick up that paintbrush I’m a seething naked mass of pure erotic ecstasy” Unfortunately the truth is also funnier to me, so I do like to say that I’m actually in paint spattered track pants and reading glasses squinting and getting angry when things don’t go right while listening to bad daytime telly and yelling at the dog for barking at the chinchilla.

The photographs are the most fun.

My models are people I know, the poses are achieved  in really fun nights in with bottles of wine and dressing up gear. It’s about making images out of nothing, it’s as much about the photographs which are made to give to the model for their own enjoyment (as in “wow I look great”) as they are sketches for later paintings.

The colours are made using different sources of light in the staging, the poses are found in movements. I say “go like this” while putting myself into the position I’ve imagined. It’s an organic process which is always new, always exciting and fascinating. What the new model will bring to the process, what the paintings will look like at the end.

There’s a lot of wine, a lot of oooh! and aaaah! a lot of laughing, a bit of mischief. But it’s not sexy. My friends are lush. Gorgeous sexy women. But I don’t fancy them. For my sins, I find men attractive.

So why don’t I paint them? That’s the next question I’ll answer.

Downsizing

My eldest son needed a bedroom of his own and unfortunately there was only one option. A bed moved in, and I was without a studio.

My work has been on the large side until now,  it’s easier and more physically satisfying to work on a larger scale and I’d just gotten used to larger and larger canvases. Without a home they suddenly looked like giants.

I’d been working on portraits and landscapes with a view to doing craft fairs locally and I hadn’t really produced any good paintings for a while so I was quite happy experimenting.

Then I discovered the ACEO. What a fabulous invention. My kids are trading card lovers. Tiny little paintings. Perfect. It’s not high art but that’s not what I’m about and it’s just such fun. My etsy page is increasingly full of these miniature paintings and I really love them.

I didn’t think I could paint on a smaller scale but I’m getting better, I have a magnifying glass and better reading glasses and an almost imperceptible paintbrush.

What next- erotic art for grown up dolls’ houses? Is there any such thing? Let me know if you find anything. The playboy mansion at 1/16 scale with a mini heff? I want one!