Saturday, May 23, 2009

Struggle!

I don't think I have ever struggled so hard on a painting as I have on this one, and it shows. I normally would have given up on it, but I really wanted this one to work - maybe because I spent so much money (and time) on this piece of canvas! (I am a bit 'cheap.') I am quitting on it for now... will let it dry and then reassess it. But I'm not happy with it, and I'm not sure why. Oh, well. You're supposed to create an awful lot of failures for each 'success,' so I guess this one leads me closer to my next good one! (And it does fit into that awful lot...)

I do know that I have been liking the quick little pieces better lately than I have liked the larger ones. It is hard for me to paint quickly and loosely with bigger pieces. But I need to figure it out. I may just have to chalk this one up as a learning experience.

3 comments:

Sue said...

well, learning experiences are what it is all about. You cannot grow without them.....You will have them and just keep them and study them and understand what is to learn from them. unfortunately, I have a lot of those learning experiences. Hopefully, I can take something away from them....You go and don't be discouraged by those you are not particularly happy about. There is always something there to teach you something.

Jan said...

Two bits of advice I got from painting profs years ago: 1. Don't try to fix this painting, just take what you learned and apply it next time (I know that's tough for the frugal minded!) 2. Sometimes as the painting progressed I was not really that interested in the entire painting, but it was hard to figure out which parts were really important to me. Figure that out before you start and you'll be much happier with the result.

ArtSparker said...

I think this is full of life, AND I can see the trouble you had with painting the backs of the children. I find drawing people from the back quite challenging. My absolute worst thing is the backs of men's heads.

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