Friday, November 14, 2014

A Day of Frustration

Loose and Bold
5x7,soft  pastel

It's a beautiful day today...lots of gorgeous fresh snow.  BUT, I think maybe I have had too much coffee.  I started on the next piece but couldn't settle down (it's a piece that has a lot of detail).  What to do....what to do!!  A change of plans.  

I decided to do a plein air looking out the window at a beautiful evergreen covered in snow.....BUT, no matter how I tried, it just wasn't happening.   I tried...wiped it off, tried again, wiped it off, tried again, wiped it off....and so on and so on for at least a couple hours.  I REFUSED to quit....which was in fact part of the problem.   By gosh, I was going to paint today if it killed me!!!!  (have I confessed yet on this blog that I am a bit stubborn?)  By this time I had pretty much rubbed off the grit from the paper...it was a soft mushy mess!  I was in a battle with this paper and I refused to give in and pull out a fresh piece!  (Hmmm, stubborn to the core)

I wonder if other "artists" have this problem...and I do mean "artist" in quotation marks because I sure didn't feel like a real artist today.  I felt like such a failure...does anyone else go through this much frustration?  Well anyway...I decided my last try would be to attack the canvas...go all out and take my frustrations out on it...then I could get the agnst out of my system once and for all.   Or perhaps be carried away in a straight jacket!

I practiced on a piece using a recent painting by Karen Margulis as an example of how to loosen up and be bold.  Karen is a great artist and has a blog titled Painting My World...check it out and you'll be amazed.   So, today was a practice day. 

I'm really not sure if I have just committed a terrible sin using someone else's art for practice.  I hope not...I certainly won't sell it.  But the Little Catholic girl inside me is secretly feeling guilty.  I promise to say three Hail Marys and two Our Fathers.  All I know is that I needed the practice...and more importantly I needed to excise the demon within!