To get from blank canvas to finished work of art, we need to make some sort of progress between the two and yet it is a word that should not to be confused with “process”, something I’ve tended not to give all that much thought, as an artist, preferring to let my methods develop and morph naturally rather than approaching them cerebrally. The idea of holding rigidly to a formula as a means to get from A to B is something I have resisted utterly as an artist and yet, I can’t deny, there are some methods that I am aware of using more often than others and which I have developed as a means of progressing, most effectively, towards a finished work. So, maybe I do employ a few processes…though, in reality, I use several and it is all open to constant evolution. At the same time, I realise that some of the ways I do things might be of interest to others and taking a step-back to see “what works” helps to inform me as a painter.

With this in mind, I’ve started taking progress shots of work between stages and so I have just put together this short video to show how my latest, “Meadow Glory”, began as something of an infantile mess of squiggle-shapes and loud colours and then, finally, transformed into what I had always envisioned in my mind’s eye. The bulk of this transformational process relies upon something I didn’t have in spade-loads when I first began painting – PATIENCE and, I feel I should also add, the FAITH that I would certainly get there (to what I envisioned) in the end. Once I stopped looking at, and investing in, all the seeming chaos along the way, I began to get there much more smoothly and consistently and this is one of the many life-skills that art has taught me. The video says this oh-so much more effectively than words alone ever could.

You can view “Meadow Glory” in more detail on my website www.helenwhite.org