Is it finished? Maybe. It’s certainly feeling more complete now. I need to live with this one a little longer and see how it holds up. And still no title yet. In fact, many of the works I’ve been making, unusually, don’t have titles yet. Hmmm, something else to think about.

Lime green threads over the orange
Yellow / pale yellow threads followed by broader strokes
Splodgy dark green marks
Grey-green threads covered
A more angular dark blue
—
Maybe something pink next, over on the left side, and the removal of the tape in the top left corner.

The idea of “letting paint be paint” struck me while developing my recent sketchbook drawings. In some ways it’s a bit of a nonsense statement as what else can paint be? And paint can be many things – smooth, dry, flat, sticky, fast, slow, thick, thin – the list goes on, but the point is paint is not biro ink, or pencil, or any other medium. Paint has its own inherent qualities and to expect or want it to behave otherwise is going to result in a fruitless struggle. Better to work with these qualities than against them.

“I have no story, which is why I am a painter. Beckett has a line about itching to make something with nothing to say. You know if you have got the itch.”

From an interview in The Guardian with the English painter George Shaw.