Painting on the break

09 Jan Painting on the break

So I did manage to do some painting over the holidays, but it’s mostly been a time of trying new things and hoping that although it might be not quite right right now — chuckle — it might lead to good things in the future! Right?

And of course, being me, none of the ones I worked on are finished!

The one above is very big, 30″x40″.  It really pushed me.  I’ve always been a fast painter but that’s gradually changing as I work bigger and bigger.  I still work fast but there’s so much more to work!  That throws me off a bit because when I’m painting I get my head into it and when I have to stop, whether it’s because life is calling or because my attention span has evaporated, I don’t get back into a painting easily.  I dream of days when I can devote a whole day to painting  although I’ll have to work on that attention span.  I’ve got so much less patience than I used to , but you know what? I was thinking about this yesterday and I’ve had a lot of things in my life where I had to be extremely patient so maybe I’ve just used it all up. Why beat myself up over it?

I had a lot of fun painting this and want to get back to it.  It’s a bit too busy right now.  My eye freaks out a bit when I look at a lot of it, especially those doors and windows which need to settle down.  But that’s OK.  I knew I wasn’t finished.  I think I need to let go and take a few risks to really turn it into a great painting.

This one was fun.  Also big, 24″x24″.  I started on the left side and thought it felt like curtains and went from there.  Not like me to not work from a photo.  Those window panes changed number and placement a LOT!  And you know what?  It’s not done! I think there might be a few more reworks on the right side but I do like the left.  I think I have to take what I learned there back to the big painting above. Right?

I had fabulous sophisticated and intriguing titles running through my mind painting this, but didn’t of course write them down.  I guess that’s OK.  If it’s right it will wander back into my mind hopefully.

I worked on a few oldies to, but won’t post them yet.  One is at an awkward stage, sigh, and the other one felt like a breakthrough as I worked it, I really felt like I was changing it and refining it a lot, but when I compared it to the original it was… um …. subtle.  Huh.

So all in all I don’t feel like I really burned up the easel but as I say, maybe it’s all in there circling.