Work Session #2054 or so...

The smell of afternoon coffee brewing and work is about to get underway.  Today will be about transferring the image onto the canvas.  It's not exactly the most exciting part of the process, but it can be fun as long as I have some good tunes going.  This painting has been a long time coming, but I had to work out the kinks in the composition for quite awhile and then get materials.  I'm excited to finally be putting it on the canvas.  It's of my coworkers and for my coworkers at my part-time job.  The four of us have formed this little fun family and it's on days like today that I really am aware of how awesome they are.  Not to mention that they're fun people to be around.  I'm really looking forward to making this for them.

The canvas is 18x24" - it seems to be my favorite size to work with lately.  It's big enough to get some good details and brushwork, and small enough to still seem manageable by being able to see the entire composition without having to step back too much.

There is also a nature drawing that I'd like to possibly finish tonight.  It's a small work - 8x10" or so - on paper.  It's been waiting on me for a few weeks now...maybe close to a few months!  It's amazing how fast the time can go by, but now that this one hundred works challenge has begun, time will be seized anyway it can.

The coffee is ready now - no more sounds of steam or the stream of coffee filling the carafe.  Time to pour a cup and be off to start today's session with a cat sleeping nearby.

I hope that you enjoy a productive day as well - love to all of you!


 

Fear of Finish

Last night Matthew and I planned to paint.  He laid out his canvas, gathered his materials and began to work diligently.  I lingered and simply stared at my current painting from across the room in a silent trance.


Matthew:  What's wrong?  Why aren't you painting yet?
Me:  I don't know...I do this everytime I get close to finishing a painting.  I avoid it.
Matthew:  Okay.  Why?
Me:  Because it never seems to end up as good as I imagined it.
Matthew:  Think about what you always told your students, and take your own advice.


We smiled and laughed at each other.  He was right.  I did need to follow the advice I had given several of my students when they reached this point.  I can hear myself now - "That's alright - hardly anything ends up as we first imagined it would.  Just do your best, and push yourself through it.  If you can change some things to make it more like you had imagined, then go for it.  If not, that's okay - what counts is effort.  Don't let it intimidate you."


It can be so easy to give encouragement to others and then forget the encouragement when it comes to oneself.  Needless to say, I did put myself squarely in front of the canvas and began working. 


I've noticed that this has been a habit within my creative process.  I reach a certain point when it is so close to being done, and then I play the procrastination game.  The procrastination game is not easy - it feels terrible and with each passing day I feel stress building.  So why do I do it?  Why do any of us do it?


I have found that it is my own fear that gets in the way.  I'm afraid that I will disappoint myself with the outcome (not measuring up to what I have in my head), and it will end up being one big let down.  I think that's why a lot of people avoid their own creative work - it's easier to fantasize about the idea of great work than it is to try to achieve it.  But is it really?  Alongside that fantasy is the torture of regret.  The realization that one didn't do what one could have, didn't work as one should have, and never gave oneself a chance to achieve had one simply tried.


With that said, I'm getting to work.  Time to take my own advice and finish this darn thing once and for all!  Love to all!

Your Voice on a Tape Recorder

Yesterday was a good day of painting.  I felt like I was making a breakthrough with the painting I refered to as the "defiant child" in my last post.  It seemed to be coming along, and making progress.

Today, not so much.  I stood back at the end of today's work session.  Everything about it seemed a bit off.  I had a completely opposing view of it than the day before.

It's amazing how your work can do that.  One minute you're thinking "Brilliant!" and a moment later you're thinking "DREADFUL!". 

I get annoyed with my own "style" that seems to be inescapable...kind of like when one hears his or her own voice over a tape recorder.  Your voice is your own, but it sounds all wrong, and there is no way to escape your particular quality of voice.  (I do have days when I can't stand my own voice without a tape recorder - those are the days when I quarantine myself to be able to not talk without feeling like I'm being rude.)

The marks I make are uniquely my own, and they just seemed overly clumsy today.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a better session.

As it is, I'm guessing that this painting will be done within about a week or so.  It will feel good to have it accomplished!

Defiant Child and Fear

I've been trying to get further with a painting and it is being a jerk.  I keep staring at it and it seems like a defiant child with folded arms staring back at me with angry eyes.

"What do you want?"  I would like to ask it...it's not said anything back yet...

I'm trying to tune in and listen.  I think that perhaps I'm too scared of what it will answer back for fear that my skills are not up to what it is demanding.  I will try.  After all, I'm not trying to save the world here - or the "cheerleader" for that matter.  I'm just painting a painting.  It's as simple as that.

It's amazing how everytime I create a painting I'm half scared of it, but the other half is just too curious to be bullied by that.  I know that I'm not alone in feeling this way.  It is a struggle sometimes, but why?  Fear?  Judgement?  Displaying weaknesses?  Believing a lie that it will never be good enough?

All of these are illusions...for the most part.  Our terrorizing daydreams of being judged are usually far worse than how reality plays out.  For instance, I've never shown up at an opening without pants while viewers take my works down and light them on fire.  The worst that has ever happened to me was an elderly woman came into the building to yell at me about how awful the work was.  I was actually honored that it made her that angry- better than being ignored, right?  CHEERS!

I'm beginning to realize that it's scarier to be an artist that doesn't create than it is to face the fears of creating (too bad it has taken 33 years for this to begin to sink in).  I don't want regrets in my deathbed like Leonardo Da Vinci did (he wished that he had completed more paintings).  With that said, I need to get to work - "defiant child" or not!

Posting and Procrastinating

I've been posting a lot lately...on this, on twitter, on tumblr blog. Well, not TONS but more than I usually do. What's up with that? (Am now hearing the SNL song in my head)...

Could it be that I am procrastinating? Unable to make the final push towards the show. Not having discipline enough to face just two more blank panels all gessoed and ready to go? I am calling myself out on this. I'm finding that I procrastinate right after I start something. I will do about an hour of work and then so conveniently get sidetracked onto something else. It's hard to sit still in front of my easel for a long time somedays, especially right before it is supposed to be ready. I never miss a deadline, but seriously, do I just love the stress of last minute? How about you, dear readers, when do you procrastinate the most?

Work in Progress