The Icing On the Cake

 

I honestly don’t know where this painting came from.  It’s almost like another artist did it.  There is a struggle going on inside of my artistic self.

I had a very hard time with this one.  I’ve only been painting for two years.  I used to do textile art.

Painting is a real adventure for me.  It has been a journey of some amazing discoveries, but also some very difficult struggles.

In art school, I took an oil painting class, and the resulting paintings were not good.  The professor advised me that painting definitely would not be my forte.  I was young and believed him.  I moved into the textile department and left all thought of painting behind.

I have to say that those comments significantly affected my art.  I always had this self-doubt and nagging feeling I wasn’t really an artist because I couldn’t paint.

Well, it turns out that was a bunch of BS.

I have now shown myself that not only can I paint, but I can paint realistically.  I can paint any damn way I want to.

I now realize that this professor should have taught me how to paint. That is what he was being paid to do. I took that class during summer quarter. I think the professor just wasn’t into teaching that quarter.  All he did was send us outside to paint.  I don’t recall any formal lessons.

I am now taking on-line classes and learning how to paint.  And, guess what?  I can paint.

I took my first painting class from Flora Bowley.  Flora has a very specific way of painting that I love.  Lately, I have tried to have my paintings look more like how Flora taught.  Not to copy Flora, there are way too many women doing that already.  But to use Flora’s techniques.  I think doing this would make for a better painting.

In my last three or so paintings, I felt that I was finally getting to where I wanted to be.  But this painting just wouldn’t gel for me.  It would not go in the direction I was trying to lead it.

I do iterative saves of my paintings as I go along.  I ended up with over 50 saves of this piece and 45 layers.

In looking back at what I did, I now see that several times I had a fairly decent painting.  Then, this voice would go off in my head, and I would start erasing (erasing is become both a blessing and an enemy lately).

Then I would redo the painting and end up making the same mistakes over and over and over.

I think I could have stopped at iterative save 10 and had a good painting.

I was thinking today that this feels almost like one part of me is going one way with my painting and yet, inside me, is another artist trying to come out.  I just don’t really know.  I never had these kind of problems with my textiles.

I think what I’m going through is probably what many other artists experience as they learn to paint.

I decided to sign up for Tracy Verdugo’s Paint Mojo ecourse.  I think I could use some of her mojo.  She recently published a book and has taught many workshops.  I love her art.

I’m feeling very frustrated about painting at the moment.  But, as all things do, this too shall pass.