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Lou Partridge
Interview with the artist
What is the first artwork you ever sold?
It was a commission for an illustration of the characters from The Wizard of Oz - for an amuater dramatics company who wanted it for thank you cards for the cast of the production - I was about 16 years old.
Did a particular person or event spark your interest in art?
I'd always been encouraged to draw and paint as a child rather than watch TV. My mum is very creative and my grandmother was the painter Lucy Hopman so it runs in the family! I was always pround to be part of a painting family and my grandmothers work has always inspired me. When I was studying for O level art I was lucky enough to be taught by Bob Read - a talented landscape, still life and portrait painter whose work I really admired. He taught me traditional drawing and painting skills which have stood me in good stead ever since.
What is the best tip you can offer budding artists?
Don't be precious about your artwork! So many new artists are afraid to put brush to paper and draw and paint so carefully because they are afraid to get it 'wrong'! My advice is to draw and paint big and bold - try out every sort of media you can get your hands on! Don't be afraid to mess something up by experiementing with it - you can always paint another one!
What do you like best about being an artist?
Being able to create beautiful things. I love working with colour and making things from my imagination come alive in the real world by putting them on canvas.
Do you have an unusual 'day job'?
I work in the Theatre doing Box Office and Front of House Management.
What are your future plans? What would you like to achieve?
My immediate Plan is to produce enough work for a new exhibition this year. I'm going to continue to exhibit with the Red Hen Artists (we're planning our Brighton May Festival 2008 exhibition right now), and this year I'm going to find some galleries who will exhibit and sell my artwork for me (Red Hen exhibitions are just not enough!).
Also in the pipeline of plans - to seek illustration commissions once more (I've had a bit of a break in favour of theatre design work), and to produce work to be made into prints and greetings cards.
So much to do and so little time!
My ultimate achievment will be to make my artwork pay enough to live a happy life on!
What media would you like to try out?
Encaustic wax. I know it's a weird thing to want to try out but having spent 7 years of my life working in the fine art and graphics supplies trade, I think I've literally tried everything else (lucky me!).
Describe your routine on a day when you are working on your art?
I get up late (it's the Artist's way....and often I've worked a show at the theatre the night before), have a late breakfast in the garden with the cats - muesli for me; meaty chunks for the cats - they can't bear oats and seeds), and a nice cup of tea. Then I'll rearrange my too small kitchen into an artist's studio, fill up a giant bucket with water and drag out the easel with the canvas I'm working on. I usually work for about and hour or two at a time with lots of distractions between - house work, cups of tea, phonecalls, eating, a quick trip to the shops - I don't have a very long attention span. If I'm working to a deadline, I just shorten the breaks! I work best in the afternoons and evenings and probably put in about 6 - 8 hours over the course of a day depending on the circumstances (ie, exhibition looming, not much work done) finishing any time between 10pm and 2am.
Have you ever had an art-related disaster?
I have had too many awful accidents involving rented accommodation and indelable inks and staining paints to mention, and then there's the transportation of glass frames by bicycle, and that awful quick sticking superglue...
When I painted the big koi (see my web gallery) painting I painted it flat on the floor of the flat I was renting in Brighton. I put down a plastic sheet over the living room carpet 1st (of course) and then lots of newspaper. I use a drippy sort of painting technique sometimes and I did for this painting so I made extra effort to be careful considering the newly carpeted flat. When the work was finished and I took up the floor coverings there was a big square of clean carpet with splatty turquoise paint all around it :( not really good for getting the deposit back...
What is the most expensive art related purchase you have made?
My Apple Mac computer. I bought it a year and a half ago after my old PC died and it's worth it's weight in gold! It enables me to do so many amazing things - have my mini gallery, access to the web and e-mail, produce all my own business cards, leaflets, info pages, labels for exhibitions, print outs of my artwork and photography, etc etc. It's invaluable for quick and cheap marketing and research and the stuff I produce on it gives a professional edge to everything I do. Hurrah for the Mac.
If you could pick just three colours to work with what would they be?
Burnt umber, prussian blue (or pythalocyanine) and zinc white.
What do you find most difficult?
The most difficult thing is trying to sell my own artwork. I'm great at selling other people's but have to really push myself to get out there and sell my own. What I need is an agent!
Which artist, past or present, would you like to study under or collaborate with
I don't have a particular artist but I would love to study Chinese brush painting under a master.
Do you display your own art at home?
I never realised this until I just read this question, but no! All my unsold/unbequethed paintings live either in a cupboard under the stairs or at the back of my art cupboard, with the exception of a very old painting of my dear old cat that lives behind the bathroom door. By the time I've finished a painting, I don't want to look at it! The current painting I'm working on sits on my easal in the kitchen for however long it takes to complete (any time between 1 week to 3 months) where I look at it with a citical eye daily!
When I visit friends and relatives houses they nearly always have some of my artwork up on their walls where I suddenly see it in a new favourable light and I often can't believe it's a painting I've painted! I have been known to ask on more than one oaccasion 'what a splendid painting - who did that?' to which the friend/relative has replied "you, you idiot, don't you remember, you gave it to us/we bought it from you for our weddng day/birth of child/new house.."
Are you messy or neat when you work?
My equipment is arranged around my with the neatness of a military operation, to start with. Then in spite of all good efforts to keep ruination of my rented flat to a minimum, it get very messy. (see question about art accidents). Let's hope my landlady never reads this...
How long does it usually take you to complete an artwork?
About 3 or 4 days roughly, working flat out, but usually I'll complete a painting over weeks or months, fitting in painting time between the day job and housework!
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