Growbags with an Orange View

Growbags with an Orange view, fused plastic collage with stitching 17 x 18cm

I began this week by looking at Alice Mumford's 'Still Life in Window'. it was sitting on the table as I'd shown it to Jos. I had collected two Sainsbury's bags (one with something I bought at the carboot sale and the other because I didn't have a bag in the car).  Earlier I had done a survey for my friend's daughter for her art foundation and I found myself choosing orange as my colour of HOPE, an outlook of orange, a sunny view. 

Mumford's painting has a series of rectangles and squares - a sash window opened from the bottom, a table, a view and walls. Although I had plenty of blues in my dining on plastic bag, I thought I'd work differently today, fusing blues over different colours to get a different range of blues. I cut up whites, creams, blues, oranges and  then a few greens. Instead of making a whole piece and cutting it up I fused five smaller pieces, abutting  colour next to colour in ways that felt exciting; then I cut them up, moving them around until I was ready to assemble my collage, ironing each piece to another to make a squarish shape.

Last weekend we planted up some pots of tomatoes.  I had been instructed to use tomato growbags as my compost.  The mustard is the grow bag and an exciting new colour for me! The last piece I added to the collage was the lemon yellow near the middle.

Seeing the Howard Hodgkin exhibit inspired me.  Those portraits! As I look at this I can almost see H H.  Perhaps I should make a series. Alice, Howard, etc…?