I do not usually do process posts. I think that it takes a lot of security. But I decided a process post of my latest piece might help me figure out where it’s going (it is not finished). I have been working slowly on this piece because it just doesn’t feel right, which is ironic. (I set out to do something different, but it turns out that I don’t like doing something different.) I set out to get away from the fluidity or expressionistic aspects of the prior paintings within this series, deciding to bring in some hard edge visual components to express my ideas, and the upshot is that if feels very uncomfortable. Yeah, I had been using some grids, but this is more rigid, and the painting feels very compartmentalized. I was not feeling it. I didn’t work on it at all yesterday. But today, after adding the figures, and the object, I feel better. The painting was always heading toward the addition of those three items. I am happier, now. However, I am not sure what the final verdict will be. Will this become a successful addition to The Sublime series, or an exercise?
This is where economics figure into my process.
Because I can’t afford a lot of materials, I feel pressured to make every piece count. I have painted over more paintings than I care to admit. However, I also realize that this pressure is twofold. Some of it is situational; some of it is self-imposed.
On top of the economics of circumstance, I am also always battling the remains of a sense of perfectionism within my practice. When a painting begins to get away from me, I start to feel uneasy. Sometimes the lack of control of the process works out very well (the happy accidents); other times it just adds up to poor execution. And quite often that feels like failure because a few articles of perfectionism still hang in my closet. There have been many nights when I have pushed a painting longer than I should have simply to get to a place where I no longer felt like the painting was failing—like the painter was failing.
I am thinking colored pencil for the figures, paint for the object, and I am also thinking about bringing the floral patterning into the side panels, thereby uniting the ceiling and floor of that part of the painting…
But I’m not sure. So far, I have used acrylics, house paint, spray paint, and oil paintsticks.
