I have taken up painting little by little in the last few weeks, those of you who follow me on Instagram have probably seen it and even then shared my thoughts about it. After all, I have gone to art school twice in my life, the first time was in 1999 and the second time was in 2004-2007, as rehabilitation after a fall on the ice when I stupidly tried to skate without a helmet, which resulted in severe brain hemorrhages and a permanent reduced working ability. Both of these art school periods have been incredibly fun and developing, and today I can long back to the wonderful creative environment at school, when I also got to share my greatest interest in life, painting and art, with like-minded people. I tell you a little about this in my firstblog post.
Since I started my company, almost all creative energy has been put into drawing. It is the drawings that formed the basis for all the products and patterns I created, whether it was for myself, or for the patterns and collections I created for others.
Painting fell into obscurity so idiotically that in one of our infrequent major cleanings I threw away the superb - but very bulky - easel I acquired after art school. It was a real mess on wheels, with a table underneath where color tubes and other little things could be put together. Guess if I regret it now that I've started painting again! But now, as I said, I have dusted off, literally, my colors. Many had completely dried up, but surprisingly many actually still worked.
Then there was only one small detail left: what should I paint!?
So many ideas and so much desire, but somehow it turned out to be a bit too many ideas. In the end I had no idea which end to start at. When I went to art school, you often got tasks from the teachers who controlled what you painted. But now I would be both teacher and student myself, which became a total cramp. In any case, I stapled a large canvas to the wall and started. I had no template, but my thought was that I must get to know the colors again, mix and see where the brush took me.
It was extremely slow, I fumbled and was cowardly and was afraid of doing "wrong". I couldn't really let go and just play with the colors, but I kept having the voices of my old art school teachers in my head, the ones I had through all the years at school, and they criticized pretty much everything. Absolutely crazy that after so many years I wouldn't be able to just paint "for fun", but the feeling is there that it has to last, become something, and so on.
When it comes to my drawing, I think that one of the reasons for my "success" was that I started making patterns that were just "for fun", where I controlled the content entirely myself and didn't care if it was clichéd or too decorative . And I really think that's exactly what I have to do when it comes to painting too: I have to free myself from the performance requirement and not think "exhibition" and interesting art. Maybe I can and want to get there after a while, but right now in the beginning when I'm going to recapture the acrylic and the oil, I have to let go of that thought. But guess what, that's easier said than done.
On the picture you see my first attempt with the acrylic. This canvas has gone from being a view from Mallorca to more like a view from Nordingrå on the High Coast, where I spent a number of holidays at my partner's parents' summer place.
But you can clearly state that it is much more difficult to paint from the imagination than to have an image to go by, so next time it will probably be a model of some kind.