Should really vacuum

Friday night. Sipping cloudy apple juice and trying to tidy my room as a way of clearing some physical and mental space. Feeling so exhausted and I'm wondering how to unwind. I've come home tired, hungry and emotional every night this week. Maybe I should add cold as well as I realise I've been home an hour and am yet to remove my buttoned up raincoat. I try to construct some sort of dinner and then zone out to a tv show like Masterchef, quickly gobbling down the food and then realising that I don't actually enjoy the show that much and I'm just watching a series of ads. This carries on for another hour or so while I can't move from the couch and look over to my housemate's laptop where he's on realestate.com searching for the dream house that we pretend we will move into tomorrow.

I have mixed post-show feelings (not unusual, I know). I'm really proud of the show but now feel a bit depleted, a little low and lonely. I feel like I need to relax a bit but there's not a lot of time to do so as I have to get cracking on my big theory essay and cram in other shows and uni assessments and a trip to Sydney in the next month. There's some great things happening and I'm not complaining because it's what I want but I suppose I just need to feel well rested and sort of find my feet again after an intense last fortnight (I guess making the largest drawing you've ever done, putting up and taking down a show in a week is something). 

It was a really new experience working on the large drawing. I came up with the composition of the scene in a day and then projected this small drawing onto a large sheet of paper on the wall, staying at the studio until I had finished the outline. Recently I have been working in fineliner and watercolour, but to make a similar image on a larger scale I had to change my materials. I used paint marker and fluid acrylic paints that I ended up applying quite thickly. I have a bit of a secret desire to paint thin but I always go thick. I think this has been a habit since colouring in as a child; I would always press hard and want the most intense colours I could get. Over the period of a week I painted sections of the drawing and re-drew and added detail to some areas. There were a few late nights over the weekend, working in the large common area of the studio the whole time. It was strange having people observe me making the drawing and also comment and converse at different intervals. My comfort zone is to work alone on an intimate scale so it felt like my process had been expanded and exposed. 

Yes, those are giant paint brushes.

Overall, I think it was good for me though. I liked working on the larger scale and I am keen to try drawing on the wall or making a mural. After having the show and observing this current work I am feeling like I want to move my focused study of the studio outwards a bit. I would like to find other spaces that are significant to me. I'm keen to look more at the natural world and perhaps incorporate elements of the garden into the interior spaces that I've been exploring and constructing. I'm interested in using figures other than myself. I would like to continue my play with perspective and flatness and use drawing in more of an installation format. Some of these things I can incorporate now and some will take more time. It's intimidating but nice to have lots of directions that I can go in. Now time for a bit of rest (going to take my raincoat off and probably not clean this room tonight) and then keep moving and find new directions.