This is a huge departure from the first time I tried working in oils. I was in my early teens. I tried to paint the rock feature that was in our yard. It ended up looking like a blobby, muddy mess, and I was so heartbroken at my own ineptitude that I swore of the medium altogether. I appear to have acquired some skill since then.
Granted, the way the painting looked in my head and the way it looks now are quite different; not so much in composition, but absolutely in style. I'm trying to accept the differences between what I see in my mind and what I see on the canvas, and to not be such a terrible perfectionist about it all. Because what I see on the canvas is not perfect, but as I'm sitting here looking at it, it's not actually bad.
I believe we call this personal growth.
Art has been really good at helping me shed my crippling perfectionism.
That has not been achieved without work, mind you. I have to fight against my destructive impulses when things I'm creating look like they're not turning out the way I wanted. I have to wrest the will to continue despite everything that's going wrong with the piece. Some people seem to manage these things effortlessly. I cannot. It's a battle for me. It's what stopped me pursuing fine art as either a hobby or a career for most of my life.
There's a silver lining to this awful pandemic and my stressful joblessness. It's made me confront my perfectionist demons and start creating art once more. I'm actually really glad for that, because I'm really enjoying stretching these metaphorical muscles again. Art was one of my favourite classes in high school. I shouldn't have ever stopped.
Ah well. Time and money, eh?
I think I'll be finished the piece in the next couple of weeks. If you're interested in how it turned out, check out my art blog, or follow me on Instagram or Twitter, or like the Facebook page I created dedicated to my art and crafting projects.
Okay, I must fly. I have editing, French and then painting to do.
Ciao!