Art.

Art is such a tricky thing.

It’s as tricky as Richard Nixon posing you a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. In Dutch.

It can be tricky for different reasons. Some people find drawing a straight line difficult...even with a ruler. There are a million and five ways to find the concept of art complicated – line, tone, perspective, colour, composition...plus a million other things.

Art is tricky.

Throughout my time of arting about at A Level, I faced many problems. I can’t say I enjoyed all of the time spent painting and drawing and writing up about the painting and drawing. The main reason for this is because I had a guideline to stick to. I had several strands, objectives and assessments to follow and mould my work around. At the time, we all despised this system. “Damn you Edexcel!” we’d moan as we finished a rather superficial page in our books about how our piece had come to fruition.  These guidelines may work for the sciences and the mathematics, hell even English, but Art as a subject is much more personal and set mark schemes can’t really do it justice. We were trapped in the qualification organisation’s grotty cell, rattling at the bars eager to be free. There’s no need to explain why we’re painting this or that, and there’s no need for these stupid preliminary sketches and pages. Or so we (I) thought...

My oh my, how things have changed.

Now I’m outside the educational system, helplessly trying to create some art myself on my own, I’m rattling at the other end of the spectrum. No longer am I stuck in that cell, instead I’m on my knees crawling under the burning sun in the middle of a barren desert. Too much space is the problem now, too many possibilities at my leisure. Where do I start? Where do I begin?

Art is tricky.

I have a few set rules, starting off with focusing more so on the sea, water and the coast. I live on the coast, so why not use it? I live where Turner painted some magnificent pieces of art (something about the unique way the sun sets over the Margate sea I hear). Now I’ve simply got to the find the correct mixture of contextual references, something a few months ago I would have shuddered at the thought of, and personal responses.

Art is -