Did I mention this class? It’s another onliner, taught by Pam Carriker, on Creative Workshops. It’s about Pam sharing techniques in portrait painting that make your work uniquely yours (yeah, I lifted a bit of that off the website).

I’ve got in a muddle because I started it flipping ages ago, stopped and then restarted and now can’t remember where I’m at with it, and then I found these paintings in one of my sketchbooks and realised I don’t actually seem to have finished the class.

I think each time I paint now I’m sticking a little piece into the jigsaw of what I do. It’s amazing (and quite a relief) to see how my identity is emerging as I do more and more. It’s a subject I talk about a lot I know, and because I read a lot of other artist’s blogs and forums and things, I’m starting to realise it’s something lots of us come up against.

I was reading something on Willowing about it, and when I realised I had something to contribute about how I found my own style, I suddenly realised that I had! Well, almost. But I think it may always be ‘almost’, because you’re always trying new things, developing, having ‘aha!’ moments and incorporating new inspiration from others. The difference is now I’ve got a much better idea of where I’m going.

I did something I’ve been psyching myself up to for ages the other day; put myself (plus an example of my work) on the Brighton Artists Open Houses website (omg I’m surrounded by other applicants with actual art qualifications and long lists of previous exhibitions! Oh.). So now anyone on there searching for artists to exhibit in their house will be able to find me and hopefully decide my art is just what they need! Am v nervous about it; if I don’t get picked that will be disappointing, if not very surprising. If I do, I will have to work like a maniac to produce enough paintings worth exhibiting, and presumably they should probably look like they were all done by the same person!