I was looking through photos from the Lille trip and found a picture of my friend's shoes placed neatly against the wall. Seemingly random picture, but I found great interest in it. It was like they were waiting for something. Arrival, departure. I was also thinking about the idea before. about the clutter we surround ourselves in, with the collecting of shoes and other products alike. Anyway, I've never sketched something like this before and it was liberating to let go of boundaries of wanting for it to look like the real thing and just paint it how I feel it should be. With my painting style I feel that there is no separation of each plane, it feels like there is lack of perspective, when all I wanted to achieve is that angled view. Also, I always have the urge to paint a part , such as the wall, a flat colour but somehow I am unable to and I start to pick out details in the dried ink wash to emphasise. The result is an overwhelming noise. It feels like there is no rest within the painting. I don't know if this is a good thing or not. It is not what I wanted to achieve but I don't hate it either. I even tried to do the 'grid' method for a more accurate representation of the image, but it was tiring - I'd rather paint it freely even though it may end up looking like a blob of mess. I definitely want to go through more travel photos and see what work I could make out of it. I really liked the connotations of shoes though. 'If you take one step forward and one step back, are you still in the same spot?'
Above was a quick sketch with a focus on mark-making, I tried flicking the paintbrush for the majority of the mountain and see how the colours very gradually build up without me ever touching the paper. This not-touching-the-surface notion was inspired by the RCA graduate artist from days ago. I actually taped edges around the paper before I started, to achieve a neat frame around. When I took it off I realised how much I liked the tape around it. Tahmina also agreed that I should leave the tape on and to trust my instincts. I labelled the MOUNTAIN & SKY just in case it was too abstract to tell. However I've always liked the random but proper labelling of things, it's informative but also a loud statement. Can you really trust labels like that? Are they true to their words?