Tuesday, December 15, 2015

How do I have time to paint

I don't. I don't have time in my day to paint. I have to make the time.
I am always tired. My engineering job, which I love, leaves my brain pretty much done by 6pm.
All I want to do is watch some movie, read a book. Something "light".

But then I realize that during the day I think about how much I would want to stop for an hour and paint. By the end of the work day, I have thought about painting probably 10 times if not more.

It's amazing how much disinclination I have to start. I will do all kinds of chores, even if they can wait, before going to the easel. Then, when I am done with those, guess what? I have the best excuse: I am exhausted. Now, I am not going to be able to produce a beautiful perfect painting.

Yes, "perfect". It actually goes thru my mind. Perfection leads to procrastination. Procrastination leads to paralysis. The "PPP".

This is when I stop and say, "Ale you need to fight it".  Tired or not, I go to the studio, and find a reference photo - gotta watch out that one too or you can end up browsing thru photos all night long...
Then something starts to happen. I grab that first grey hard pastel and make a drawing of shapes. Tonight, I wanted to paint a barn. A distant barn.

After about maybe 15 minutes or so (I really don't know) I am on the other side. The side where I lose track of time. It's all about the color choices, the light and the shadows, how to keep color harmony among other things. I was tired I guess, but not enough to make me stop once I start.

Today I realized a bit late, that I was having problems with the foreground. I am not able to get flowers realistically, and I kept going back and forth making the foreground abstract and then detailed. I was getting frustrated. At some point, I decided, hey, all you wanted to do was to get to paint something, remember?... and just left it as is. Sometimes, you have to let it go.

The feeling of accomplishment is there, whether the painting is perfect or not.



"Purple patch" 9x12 pastel




Revisited and now sold.




Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Holiday warmth - pastel 12x16

This is my last painting that I will be sharing in my christmas card this year!

Some of the images of the setup and progress are below:





















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