I am doing an exchange at the moment with another painter friend. I go to her house along through the most beautiful villages. I have joined her still life class. It's not really a taught course, more to encourage new thinking around our own practice. That's how I see it anyway. My Friend Jenny Makkinga has a wonderful way with colour. She has lots of boards covered in paint that she doesn't see as finished. They are mostly figurative with all kinds of motifs and have a dreamlike painterly quality combined with beautiful layered colours. She recently began studying colour mostly by buying books by Johannes Itten off the internet. Then she put away the books believing they made no sense to her but it has somehow seeped in. It's the way really when doing anything creative you study and learn techniques then try and drop these things to free you from them. I realised that I have a little strategy for putting in too much detail. I use brushes that are extra thick or thick drawing materials. I began using tiny Rotring pens like needles with black constant ink.
