On viewSmall Works for Winter
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MARA ELLISON

Journal

Studio notes

Short pieces written between paintings: on light, walking, process and the slow work of looking.

Overhead view of a terracotta dish of mixed paint with a brush resting on paint-splattered work clothes
written between paintings
A hand with a brush working pale grey paint into a dark blue canvas on an easel

1 min read

The blue hour, revisited

For three weeks I have been walking down to the marsh just after sunset, trying to catch the twenty minutes when everything turns the same cold blue.

Earlier notes

  1. 1 min read

    Keeping the edges unfinished

    I have started leaving the outer few centimetres of each canvas loose: the drawing visible, the ground showing through.

  2. 1 min read

    A walk before the first mark

    Every painting in the studio starts with the same forty-minute walk along the field edge and back.

  3. 1 min read

    What the fog leaves

    Fog is a good teacher of composition. It removes everything except the two or three shapes that matter.