Here be there dragons

It's the middle of October and the nights are drawing in. My overwhelming urge at this time of year is to go into hibernation mode; I haven't felt like doing a great deal of painting recently, but last weekend I decided to cheer myself up by some doodling with gouache - a medium which I don't use very much - and found myself creating a dragon - my first, in fact. As you can see, he's not a scary dragon, but quite dynamic nevertheless. He's given me a few ideas; in fact, I have almost too many at the moment. Some I thought were fixed keep changing, too, which is making it hard to get to grips with anything new!

My First Dragon
© Teresa Kirkpatrick 2009

It's only now I can take an objective look back at Open Studios and recognise how well things went. My fellow-exhibitors and I agreed that the best thing about it was the opportunity to meet and discuss art with the general public; our own art, each other's art, and - in many cases - the visitors' art. And this year I've had a taste of something less easily defined: the thrill you get when your work touches somebody. It's not shared vision, exactly - everybody's coming from their own standpoint, after all - but something in your work which resonates with them.

When one of my paintings struck a chord with people, their pleasure with it made me revisit it again in my mind; I recalled the scene which inspired the painting and the fun I had creating it. Someone bought a print of a favourite photo; reminding me of what I loved about it in the first place. So. although it's a difficult time of year for me, I'm keeping positive. The dragon, after all, is a symbol of life force and great potency. Perhaps I should frame him and put him on the wall to inspire me!