We’re escaping to a world of vivacious vibrancy in this week’s Arty Afternoon with abstract artist Jane Wachman!
To watch and be inspired, please click on the ‘Play’ button below
Jane spends much of her time in Wimbledon Art Studios and thought it would be nice to share a little more about how she works in the bright and beautiful place where she works. With almost every square inch adorned with her lively pieces, it’s impossible not to feel inspired by her infectious passion for colour and shape.
As she shares in her video, Jane’s artworks are based on landscapes. She relies a great deal on her own memory, as well as taking photos when travelling by various modes of transportation, which help her to capture the movement and ever-changing outlines of the world around us. She then chops them up and ‘mish mashes’ them to create her sprightly scenes.
Finding it useful to always have canvases prepared and multiple artworks on the go, Jane encourages everyone to give this way of working a try, as it means you can revisit pieces whenever you wish. Spontaneity is the key and whilst there will be days when the colours simply don’t work, there are many more occasions when they do and your work comes together unintentionally perfectly!
Interestingly, Jane shares that she very rarely uses brushes, instead building up her layers by scraping her spirited paints onto the canvas. This is also how she mixes her colours, which gives her the scope to play with hues and shapes as she goes. For Jane, art is all about not taking creativity too seriously and just enjoying it and it’s this that enables different palettes to emerge at different times, depending on the colours she starts with.
Describing her studio and style as ‘organised chaos’, it’s evident that Jane’s approach is fun, playful and certainly one we hope everyone will want to attempt. Getting carried away with the paint, like an artist in a sweetshop, as Jane puts it, can lead to great things and if you have a firm favourite colour, this style of working is a wonderful way to weave it into every piece. For Jane, pink is her passion and her art attests to this!
Crediting her prior experience in the fashion industry for her love of colour, Jane’s large, gestural paintings look at shape, form and structure in landscapes. Much of her work is inspired by travel and her pieces pull together memories of place through intuitive mark making. Her influences are varied, coming from as far as India and Morocco, as well as featuring more familiar places such as the Sussex Downs and the Irish coast.
She believes that the colours she uses are an extension of her personality, as she herself is energetic and spontaneous. As you’ll see, Jane is passionate about what she does, feels very lucky to be an artist and sincerely hopes you enjoy her video as much as she loved creating it.
