Today I thought I’d share with you the ups and downs I’ve had with my art this week! When I tutor and demonstrate to groups, people often imagine all my paintings go to plan and that I never have any failures, if only that were true!
As I’ve talked about in some of my previous posts over the past few months I’ve felt very excited, inspired and full of enthusiasm. I’ve loved exploring and developing a looser more ‘painterly’ style and a new way of working. However, over the past week I seem to have been on a bit of a roller-coaster! After a day of catching up with housework and admin, and another day of computer work I was really looking forward to spending a whole day in my studio.
Limitations live only in our minds,
But if we use our imaginations.
our possibilities become limitless.
Jamie Paolinetti
It started off very promisingly, enjoying a coffee whilst flicking through various sketchbooks deciding which sketch to use for the basis of a painting.
I felt full of enthusiasm and decided to paint a large mixed media landscape, having had an order of my favourite cotton paper, Saunders Waterford, delivered last week that was just waiting to be opened.
I felt a real buzz of excitement applying the first a loose washes to the sky and across the foreground. I was happily getting covered in watercolour and ink and at this stage I really liked the way the painting was going. I left it to dry whilst I had lunch and returned to the studio full of enthusiasm.
However rather than painting the foreground in the looser style I’ve been developing I became tight and engrossed in small marks and detail. At the end of the day I left the studio feeling rather disillusioned and unhappy with the unfinished painting. Now I have to decide whether I abandon it completely, although I do really like the sky, or if I should pop it to one side for a while and look at it again another day.
At times like this I try to remind myself to stay positive rather than focus on the negative, although it’s not always easy!
I did a painting a few years ago that I just wasn’t happy with and after it sat in the studio for several months I decided to put it out to be thrown away. My husband didn’t agree and brought it back down to the studio telling me I should carry on with it, which I did. I don’t know if it was because I’d not looked at it for quite a while but when I reworked the painting I really liked the finished result. I decided to include it in my next solo exhibition, and it sold with a few minutes of the doors opening!
The ups & downs of art!
Happy painting,
Ingrid
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It’s very reassuring to know that an experienced artist like yourself Ingrid can have days when you are disappointed with your efforts. I’m still learning to stay positive as a beginner and it’s not always easy!
I love the contrasts of the light on the fields with the dark hedgerows in your picture (I can see more by scrolling further down the page). It has a photographic quality I think. Well done. 🎨
Thanks June I’m pleased you like it. As you say it’s not easy to stay positive when a paintings not going the way I want it to! Sometimes I fund it helps to work on something completely different or times I need to carry on with it to stop it annoying me!