I’ve finished the 4th painting “Apple of Discord” in the apple still life mini series. The next two still lifes have progressed past the block in stage and the final three have been sketched. I’m enjoying these more than I thought I would and I’m excited to see all nine together on one wall.
Painting Pangs
Despite all the enjoyment I get out of painting, I definitely get frustrated with it at times. The frustration stems from screwing up basic things like eclipses and not seeing it until I’ve applied paint or letting my colors get muddy. When do the avoidable mistakes stop? At what point can a person just pick up a brush and create art on the first try? Occasionally I get it right the first time, but it’s usually a process of errors and corrections. Apple of My Eye is a good example of a painting that I pretty much got right from the start. My instagram feed has the full rundown of the error/correction process I took with this painting.
For the last two years I’ve been really pushing myself to paint. While I have seen improvement, I’m not where I want to be. So, I bought myself a little watercolor set hoping that I would start sketching a little more and stop making mistakes in my sketches.
Watercolor Fails
Ugh! I’m a complete beginner when it comes watercolor. My knowledge of oil paint doesn’t translate at all. I keep trying to use thicker mixes of paint since watered down paint feels so foreign. My husband keeps giving me a tight smile that means “Yikes! You call yourself a painter?” My words, not his. He doesn’t sound like that.
The hubby apparently knows his way around watercolors even though he hasn’t picked up a brush in the last 10 years. He painted the pretty flowers, which I’m going to insist he paint again larger. My painting is the ugly brown chair that vaguely resembles the butt of the cat sitting on it. Which sounds more like what he would say, by the way. A cat butt remark usually sneaks into his critiques at some point.
Part of the appeal of watercolors is that I can easily take it out and about with me. I had grand plans of painting at soccer practices and while on an upcoming backpacking trip, but I’m not sure now.
Painting with watercolors for me will probably end in the same fate as countless other Pinterest activities: Abandoned out of laziness or abandoned in failure. I haven’t reached either point. Yet. I had slightly more success this week with 3 of 4 of those sketches above so I’ll probably try to stick with it for now. If all else fails, at least I got the hubby to paint again.
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