How long does it take to paint a painting?

You might as well ask how long a piece of string is. I'm sure there isn't a painter in the WHOLE WORLD who hasn't been asked that question. And it drives me RIGHT UP THE WALL.

I've never been able to figure out a) why anyone would want to know ­they either love the painting or they don't, RIGHT? - and b) from precisely which point I should start counting the hours. So get your calculators out RIGHT NOW if you're one of those who REALLY need to know. Because THIS is how it goes for me:

1. Get the SEED of an idea. Think about it while looking out of my studio window a LOT. A gin-and-tonic would help, but it's too early, or so I'm told. It will have to be coffee (WHY does everybody love coffee so much??? Beats me, but maybe that's because I drink Nescafe. I KNOW, I KNOW SHAME on me). REALLY need to call my daughters in Spain ­haven't spoken to them for AT LEAST 24 hours,and I DO have responsibilities,you know. XX number of hours.

2. Choose a blank white canvas (that's how they come) and cover it as QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE with a thin wash of colour. NOTHING dries up my imagination quicker that a Blank White Canvas. AAAH, NOW I'm on a REAL ROLL. Go home, because it needs to dry overnight. X number of hours.

3. LOVELY coloured canvas. TRULY LOVELY. Look at it admiringly for a while, and then look out my window a LOT. So many buses going past. Wonder what I'm going to cook for dinner. Arrange all my paints prismatically. Is that BEAUTIFUL or WHAT!!! Look at them LOVINGLY from time to time ­they make me feel SO GOOD. Is it time for a gin-and-tonic yet? X number of hours (are you adding all this up?)

4. Pull myself together and start painting. OH MY GOD. But hey,it's not so bad. There is DEFINITELY potential there. Come home with a spring in my step, KNOWING things are going well and I deserve a gin-and-tonic. Or maybe vodka would be better - THIS IS BRILLIANT. XX number of hours.

5. Go back to the studio at the crack of dawn. HATE HATE HATE what I've done. DO A RETHINK. Somehow, coffee doesn't help (IMAGINE THAT!). Look out the window. RIVETTED with interest, because there's someone out there DESPERATE for a taxi. Keep craning my neck (from my first-floor studio) to see if I can find one for her. I simply HAVE to see that one through. Sort out my brushes, throwing away the ones worn down to the bone. COUNT MY BRUSHES (I really HAVE to stop buying brushes). This is WONDERFUL. Takes time, though. And I do need to call my daughters again. It's been AGES. Hasn't it? XXX number of hours.

6. It gets better, and I suddenly find myself VERY INVOLVED. Don't think I'll throw myself off my balcony after all. Apart from the mess it would make, I've got grandchildren who LOVE me. NEED TO CALL MY DAUGHTERS. XXXX number of hours.

7. FINALLY get to where I think I want to be. Oh HEAVENLY BLISS. BUT just in case ­ put it aside while I go through the whole agony of starting YET ANOTHER painting (see all steps above). And out of the corner of my eye, spot something I missed COMPLETELY. HAVE TO FIX IT. XXXX number of hours.

8. FIX IT. I THINK. But now I have to paint the FRAME. Two or three coats of paint at least. GOD FORBID I should actually do a painting without a painted frame. Whether it suits it or not. I've tried it (especially with my African paintings, which in fact look better with an unpainted frame) but I have come to realize that people ACTUALLY THINK they've been cheated without it. Go figure. XXX number of hours.

9. AND THEN ­ my VERY unfavourite thing ­ THE VARNISHING. Two or three coats at least, over the same number of days. Drape cloths all over my lovely floor and spray like mad. Got to get an even surface on the canvas. VERY HEADY STUFF, this spray. It may EVEN better than a gin-and-tonic. I wonder if it's legal? XX number of hours.

OKAY. THAT'S IT!!! So add it all up, divide it into the price of the painting, and DON'T, PLEASE DON'T, tell me the answer to THAT MADDENING QUESTION. I may discover that my cleaning lady is earning a whole lot more than me.

Bottom line: it takes as long as it takes, and that's all I've ever been able to say about it. I do, however, try and say it as profoundly as I can.

Aaah, ART GALLERIES

A lot of people go to art galleries ALL THE TIME (or so they tell me), and I LOVE that. Where would I be without them, after all? I love the feedback, I love the connections, it’s HEADY STUFF if you’re a painter. But darlings, you have NO IDEA what’s it’s like behind the scenes. I could write a BOOK (and maybe I will……….one day).


I speak from an artist’s point of view, of course, and it may sound as though I’m biting the hand that feeds me, but I have severely conflicting emotions when it comes to art galleries. If you’re HUGELY lucky, they can make you feel pretty good. OR they can make you feel like they’ve single-handedly saved you from a life of TOTAL OBSCURITY (thereby indebting you to them FOREVER, of course). I’ve had my fair share of them over the years, with varying degrees of – God, can I call it PLEASURE? I have to think about that. But with one notable exception, it could NEVER have been described as FUN.


BUT THEN – there was this note, you see, which popped up in my studio mail a long time ago, asking if I’d be interested in exhibiting with them. OH SURE, I thought, AND I believe in Santa Claus, I thought, and threw it into the bin.


One phone call later, and this lovely tiny hippy-chic person with a Cockney accent came through the door and into my life. Su Gibson. She’s been there ever since. She has wheedled, cajoled, coerced and persuaded me, as only she can, (I think out-and-out BLACKMAIL came into it occasionally) into more exhibitions than I had ever DREAMED of doing. And, much as I may have moaned and groaned along the way about the STRESS of it all – there’s ALWAYS stress – each one has pushed me along the road to confidence, and taken away some of the angst I’ve always felt deep down about my capabilities.


And it HAS been GREAT FUN. Okay, now and then a period of turbulence, but nothing that a really good friendship (which is what it became) couldn’t surmount. And ALWAYS – an abiding respect for each other. We sold a LOT of paintings, too. Spoilt me for life, it did.


Chalk Farm Gallery was – and still is – my idea of what an art gallery should be, but so seldom is.

It’s LOVELY to look at (see photo), fun to be in, AND – this is important, and the secret of her success, I think - HUGELY accessible to EVERYONE. Su has an irresistible energy and enthusiasm that just carries you along. And she LOVES art with a PASSION.


It couldn’t last, of course. Some years ago, she moved the gallery to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I have felt UTTERLY BEREFT ever since. Never having done this sort of thing before, I made one or two half-hearted approaches to other London galleries, and came away feeling like some sort of sub-species of humanity, with my morale in UTTER SHREDS. God, I HATED that.


And so I don’t do that any more. Because the one thing that my experience with Chalk Farm Gallery – and Su – has given me is the knowledge that the people who buy my paintings do so because they love them. Not because they’re investments, not because they’re important, not because some gallery person with a lot of hype topped up the sales figures. Just because they love them.


You CANNOT IMAGINE how good that feels.

Love Affair

I’m having this MAD LOVE AFFAIR at the moment. I wish I could tell you that it was with George Clooney (my philosophy - if you’re going to dream, AIM HIGH), but this one promises to endure.

I’m talking about an iPod. Yes, that same little gizmo which even my grandchildren have had for YEARS. In fact, they give the impression that they’ve had theirs surgically implanted somewhere, because they NEVER seem to be without them. I’m beginning to understand why.

We have the MOST MARVELLOUS Christmases IMAGINABLE, and my poor lovely husband runs himself MENTALLY RAGGED trying to think of something WONDERFUL to give me ( and GOD, I’m picky!). And so of course he turns to our daughters. And when I talk about them, I’m talking about CUTTING EDGE here, you understand.

So there I was, confronted with an iPod – which I KNEW I didn’t want, didn’t need, would NEVER use, DIDN’T THEY UNDERSTAND THAT????? I have an absolutely SPLENDID music system in my studio. And it only takes me 8 minutes to walk there. But hey, I smiled BRILLIANTLY, said THANK YOU DAAARLING (I wasn’t fooling anybody) and stashed it away.

And then, and THEN……….a little tossed-off, by-the-way question from my husband some time later ( “do you ever use your iPod?”) , TOTALLY without censure, struck HUGE GUILT into my heart. God, I was STRICKEN with remorse. I hauled out all the instructions and actually sat down and READ THEM. This is practically against the law in our family – we MUCH prefer to work it out ourselves, and ALWAYS with DISASTROUS results.

But not this time. Astoundingly enough - you have to realize who you’re dealing with here - I managed to IMPORT MUSIC into it. MORTIFYING to discover how easy it was. Even MORE mortifying to discover what a lot of pleasure the result was, and just how much I had been missing. I’m SUCH an idiot sometimes.

So now I go up to my studio every morning listening to my iPod. With HUGE pleasure, and I mean HUGE. Bopping my way up and down Kensington Church Street, having the BEST TIME.

BUT – there are peripheral dangers. I’m TERRIBLY WORRIED that it’s turning me into a NICE PERSON. Oh Lord, WHAT A NIGHTMARE! I went to the Post Office yesterday and joined the longest queue imaginable. I hate queues with a PASSION, and long ones send me COMPLETELY MAD. And do you know what? I actually stood there SMILING HAPPILY at everyone while I listened to a lot of GLORIOUS music. People were starting to edge away nervously. No, no, I’m SERIOUS.

I’m DEFINITELY going to have to work on that.

Trust me, NOTHING beats pink hair

Trust me, NOTHING beats pink hair for identification purposes. Try calling your plumber and giving your name, address, telephone number, past plumbing history, social security number, height, weight, age ­ well, maybe not age - WHATEVER. And the response will be UTTER BEWILDERMENT.

BUT, as I have discovered, "I'm the lady with the pink hair" evokes an IMMEDIATE response. Anything from "oh HI, how ARE you?" to "do you still have the same problem" - chuckle chuckle. IT'S BLISS.

It all started with my first solo exhibition in Geneva, more than a few years ago. I was beside myself with nervousness, and so of course tackled the MOST IMPORTANT issues first: a) outfit and b) HAIR. Outfit was easy - just go out and spend some money. But HAIR - now THAT required some thinking about.

So I went what I thought was COMPLETELY MAD at the time (I was much more conservative then) and decided to have a PINK STREAK put in somewhere in the middle of all the boring brown. Talk about living DANGEROUSLY. After all, I thought, people EXPECT artists to be a LITTLE crazy. And so I had a little pink streak put in. Well, I thought it was little, but a sense of proportion is a very personal thing.

There's been absolutely NO GOING BACK since then. It has evolved through a whole SPECTRUM of colours over the years. And it has grown and grown, until at one stage there wasn¹t a SINGLE brown hair on my head. And - no groans, please - it has been HEADY STUFF.

A little pink streak became several streaks of pink/purple/orange. Then bright red all over. THEN - there was no holding me now - a COMPLETE change of colour range to blue/green/purple. Here I hit a serious snag. NONE of my clothes went with this combination. It would have required a MASSIVE investment in a new wardrobe, so I abandoned it. Especially after a sweet lady engaged me in conversation at the dry cleaners and - eyeing the green with genuine interest - asked me if it was St. Patrick's Day already.

But that's been the best thing about it, you see. People react, and chat to me, and I've acquired a wide and interesting diversity of friends as a result. Mind you, the reaction hasn't ALWAYS been a happy one. I vividly remember walking down the streets of New York, where a couple of TERRIFIED children cowered behind their HORRIFIED mother. One of them actually BURST INTO TEARS. Now THAT was mortifying. I felt like a COMPLETE menace to society - fleetingly - before reminding myself that kids are SO conventional.

All except mine, of course.

I have to ask: Where did that TERRIBLE word BLOG come from? It sounds like something you should be telling your little children NOT TO DO, EVER. Well, not in public, anyway. But since I'm well past the stage of telling my children ANYTHING (it never ever worked, as I recall), and GOD FORBID they should think I¹m not up there and trendy and WITH IT, here I am, BLOGGING.
My mother is turning in her grave. She does that a lot, I think.

Okay, so here goes.

Pinned to my easel is a cartoon I clipped from a magazine many years ago.
It depicts an artist sitting in front of a blank canvas, SURROUNDED by many more canvases. ALL TOTALLY BLANK. And he is explaining to his friend 'Some days are magic, some are not'.

Well, he's got THAT right. I've had days when things have gone from bad to worse with a painting and I'm blaming everything, but EVERYTHING, on my lack of training (I do this a LOT) and trying not to cut my throat. So I solve the problem with my usual flair and inventiveness, which is to say, I clean my brushes, go home, and pour myself a stiff gin-and-tonic.

And I'll probably cook. Now, cooking is therapy in itself. All that alchemy and creativeness and artistry (or so they tell me) and if it doesn't work out, you can always pitch it in the bin and order takeout. It¹s a highly recommended antidote to the painting blues. Just don't forget the gin-and-tonics..