I’m Back!

I think my decision to not post every single painting I do has freed me to blog.

I am painting way faster than I used to.  Plus, I’m also doing photography.  To post every painting and every photograph is unrealistic.  In addition, not all of them are worthy of viewing.  I know, it’s sad but true.  My husband puts it this way.

Look at baseball players.  If they hit .400 they are considered amazing.  But very few of them have ever had a .400 career.  Then look at most pitchers.  They can’t usually hit at all.  Of course, they pitch.

I have to admit, not all my paintings are home runs.  I’m not even hitting .400.  But I’m doing better than I used to.  Practice. That’s what makes the difference. And classes.

Also being in touch with other artists is very important. Then I find out that what I experience is not unique.  The older I get, the more I find that what I experience is most likely experienced by other human beings.

Just this last weekend, I was watching a video done by digital artists Aaron Rutton (http://aaronrutton.com) and Skip Allen (http://skipallenpaints.com).  The screen was split in two.  On one side, Skip was painting some beautiful watercolor flowers.  Aaron was hosting Skip and was just kind of doodling and not trying very hard. Frankly, he was making a mess.

Then Aaron checked on the size of his audience.  He saw they had 95 viewers.  He decided he should up his game.  He drew this fabulous portrait.  That’s what happens to me if I don’t try hard enough.  I draw a mess.

Then, Skip showed some flowers he had done in preparing for the video they were doing.  He was unhappy with his results in the video.  He thought they were too tight.  He showed his first flowers and how loose they were and how as he went forward they kept getting tighter.  They looked pretty good to me.  But I completely related to what he was saying.  The more I work at my art, the tighter it gets.

Until I saw that video, I thought I was the only person cursed with this problem.  But, no, yet again, I find I’m just like other people.  If I don’t pay attention to my art when I’m doing it, I get a mess. If I’m not careful, it gets too tight very fast.

That, finally, brings me to the above painting.  I did this on my new iPad Pro. I love painting on it. I am using the painting app Procreate which is totally awesome.  It comes with a ton of brushes in all kinds of media.  It works extremely well with the Apple Pencil. I’m fact, this last weekend, they had an update to make it even more compatible with the Apple Pencil.

This morning I was working on this painting, and I had this crisis.  I really wanted to do more to it.  But I knew if I did it would get tight and be ruined.  I find I always am doing that to my paintings.  Too tight.  So, even though this feels unfinished, I’m calling it finished.  It was really hard to sign it and put it up.  Every fiber in my body wants to do more to this.  But I’m not going to.  Just this once.  Then I’ll see what happens next painting.