Individual Styles

[Annie Dalton]

Looking round at all the lovely art I find myself feeling a bit discouraged until I realise (again) that we each bring something unique and different to the table. 

The late Margaret Olley (one of Australia's great artists) said that she always tried to put the right kind of feeling into her paintings (me paraphrasing here) i.e. feeling happy, peaceful, etc.  That's an admirable quality and her paintings certainly have a wonderful peaceful feeling about them.  Very comforting.  That was Margy's intent and it can be ours... consciously.

I'm not sure I can emulate Margy but a good painting has something of ourselves wrapped up in there between the paint and the canvas and people can sense that.  We give our works our energy imprints.  That's something else for us to worry about, especially for this  burgeoning (bludgeoning) artist. 

Most of the time these days I'm painting things for myself.  Someone asked me recently:  "Why don't you do paintings that people like?"  Hmmmm... Sometimes our need to express our emotions over-rides our need to have approval from the general public, our friends and family.  

My drug paintings are a case in point.  (Not yet on my site.)  They have rather 'dark' adult themes.  These are paintings that people love or hate.  These paintings have an agenda.  The theme is confronting.  They're sad paintings and controversial and they may never sell.  However, we paint because we can. 

Unless you're truly starving you should paint from your heart and damn the consequences!