Challenging Myself

Very few people know that, when I was a kid, I dreamed of being an artist.  I wanted to study art in school, show my work in galleries and make a living selling it!  

That just didn’t happen.  I had to go to work.  Married.  Went to school and received a degree in a field that would ensure a steady salary.  Had my babies and raised them.  I just didn’t have time to devote to learning to paint well or, heck, to paint at all.

Wellllllllll, if I’m being truthful that really isn’t accurate.  I just didn’t take the time to do so. 

Then we retired and I started to dabble again.  I took a couple of classes through the Community Ed department at my former school district and started to get excited about painting again.  When one of the teachers asked me to show my work in a little cafe in town I was thrilled!  It wasn’t a gallery BUT I DID get to show my work to people other than my family!

Then the 18 months of “no fun” started and I had little desire to paint.  I did do a couple of paintings but…meh!  It has been a little more than a year since Steve passed and I am only now really wanting to pick up a brush. 

I have HATED everything I’ve painted this year because I have overthought and nitpicked each project.  I’ve worked and reworked each painting until it is a nasty, muddy mess. Ugh! It’s been so discouraging.   

Sooooo…I decided that I needed find a way to force myself to silence the mean, internal critic.  Through a FB site, I found a 5 day painting challenge (yeah, I’m late…the actual challenge just finished but…).  Every day for 5 days I have 20-30 minutes to complete a painting.  The intent of this challenge is to force us to silence our internal critic and to practice just getting paint on a canvas without worrying the paint to death.  

Today, I completed my first painting in 35 minutes using primarily a palette knife.  It wasn’t easy.  I kept stressing over the time and looked at my timer every four or five minutes.  I’m not thrilled with the finished (hah) product but I think my primary issue was I painted on my back porch where the light was really low.  It was very difficult to see the values in the paint on the palette or the canvas.  **shoulder shrug** 

Oh well, the painting is not nearly complete and the values definitely need a LOT of work but I don’t care.  I finished a painting in ALMOST the allotted time and that is a huge WIN for me.

Tomorrow will be another day!!