Blog

I have spent a lot of time over the past months re-evaluating my work, trying to change it up a bit. I didn’t really know how I was going to do it, nor did I know where I even wanted to go with it. All I knew for sure was that I wanted my work to excite me more, both in the process of doing it, and in the observing of it afterward. A tall order, because truthfully, I’m extremely critical of my work. I guess we have to be, in order to continue growing as artists.

When I am heavily into a particular piece of work, I forget to allow myself any time for experimentation and in order to keep myself from producing cookie-cutter art, I need to take myself out of the cookie jar. So early this week, I returned to a practice I had done several times in the past--a painting a day, not spending more than an hour on each. This time my goal was to get in more drawing practice and then to just experiment with the painting process. The beauty of this practice is that I allow myself to make mistakes. I view the process like a science project, thereby releasing my inner critic. It allows me to be bold and take chances that I wouldn’t normally take with a commission.

So, I grabbed a bunch of photos from my references, put them into a folder, and started painting from the top of the pile. The first painting I did was awful, by all counts. The drawing was off and the painting process was boring at best. The second was a bit more creative with color, as was the third. In the third painting, the brushwork opened my eyes to some new possibilities. On the fourth day, I actually ended up with a little painting that didn’t look like anything else I had done before, and I liked that about it.

So I plan to continue this practice to see what I can come up with. I plan on surprising myself in the process. And, my inner critic will been locked in the closet.