In the red

It's a very busy time of year for me - there are loads of local exhibitions on - and that means decisions to make whether to participate or not, which to go and see, and which to miss out. I can't do all of them, so I have to pick and choose which are most important to me. And then I have to consider that if the exhibitors can put a maximum of ten paintings in an exhibition, that I have the ten that I need, and usually the organisers want the information for the exhibitions well in advance, which means the paintings have to actually exist! So I've been busy painting these last few days, along with continuing with the paintings I'm doing for the main gallery.

My model asked me an interesting question when I saw her this week - and one that made me laugh out loud in disbelief! She said "Do you ever get stuck for ideas of what to paint?" and my reply after I'd stopped laughing, was "No, I have the opposite of writers block - I have so many ideas to paint at this moment in time, that I doubt I'd ever get them all painted if I painted solidly for the next year, and that's not counting the other ideas that come to me regularly for paintings".

So, when I drew her this week, I knew exactly what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. Another white on black drawing with a touch of colour to add interest. And the interest in question was going to be suspenders and that lovely piece of creamy white thigh at the top of the leg that is that is exposed whilst a woman is putting on stockings. I also wanted her cleavage on show and the hint of the little black dress that she was wearing whilst she got dressed to go out. And since I prefer to paint as little as possible to get the point across, I did just that, and added the colour just for the suspenders. The title came to me easily too, which always thrills me when it does - so it's called "In the red" because she's obviously in red underwear, from what you can see so far!