Lou Whittingham Shropshire, United Kingdom
I'm a self-taught disabled artist from Shrewsbury Shropshire. I'm driven to paint by the act of painting itself and the environment around me. My work is abstract/semi-abstract it comes from the feelings that I get from places I visit, mainly my love of the countryside and the coast is the driving force. My practice can vary from en Plein air to straight to the canvas.
I work intuitively, like writing a story, but with paint and various tools as my pen and paper.
Starting with rough sketches often en Plein air with ink paint crayons pencils etc. Frequently tearing them and collaging to create mood pictures then I do a series of thumbnail sketches increasing in size to A3 when colour comes into play and I start to fit the pieces together that are floating around in my memory. Each piece will change several times as I start to work out colour palettes and compositions before moving to canvas and/or cradled panels, regularly just the bare bones of the sketches will make their way into a painting as I continue to ‘write’ each painting's story onto the substrates, I usually have 3-5 on the go in rotation. using whatever media I feel suits the feeling of the painting collage, acrylic paint, oil pastilles and ink’s throughout the layers refining as I paint.
In the figurative work that I feel compelled to do I like to challenge myself with new techniques and processes like not using a paintbrush or only using one colour.
