Lately I have not been painting as much, but I seem to be producing a lot more work. I think it might have to do with painting in a series. My new series ‘Garden Party’. It is keeping me focussed. Painting within a framework, is providing parameters to work within but also freedom that with each piece I can add additional elements, try new colours, shapes, and then if something isn’t working as well I can just bin it on the next piece.
I really thought I would get bored with this way of creating art.
My usual way of working is that I will get an idea, draw it up and paint it and then by then end of that piece I would want to move onto something else. I rarely wanted to paint it again. But for some reason with the series I seem to be able to push though this feeling. Even though I am repeating some elements there is this exploration with each piece that allows me to push it in a different direction.
Now I am wondering if that boredom was more to do with it getting hard and not wanting to have to admit to myself when it gets difficult. I am very good at starting new things and not always finishing them. Which definitely comes back to not wanting to get it wrong. So if I never finish it I can’t ruin it.
So strange the self sabotaging we do. Even in subtle ways. The take out for me is to just push through get past the ‘messy middle’ where it is always the hardest to keep going. And before you know it, it’s finished.
The other thing I have been doing is just ‘finishing it already’. Not dragging it out worrying about how many layers of varnish or more details or changing bits here and there. I am getting better at saying ‘its done’ then sending it off to the framers to get photographed and sometimes framed. Which helps to make it feel complete. I should add, that i am better at that this month, due to a lot of deadlines, but next month, who knows?
Thanks for reading,
Vanessa x