Saturday, April 24, 2010

Horses and Cats--Oh my!

 "Julie's Paradise" - unfinished painting by Me (notice the addition of the poppy leaves-not there before).  The stage as of yesterday.  I know.  I'm getting to the cat (the small blob on the back of the horse)

Good good good.  Finally I'm disciplining myself to get back into the studio and work on finishing my painting.  Just thought I would show you where I'm at now.  In the future-talking to all of you-if I want to do a painting surrounded by poppies will you please remind me how I could hardly force myself to do this one?  Oh, no!  Just as I had that thought I envisioned one surrounded by another kind of flower.  Doomed.  I'm doomed.  Oh, well.  It's a nice kind of doomed.

*Picture directly below was the stage of painting before yesterday's concentrated effort.  The next 3 are from yesterday and, even if I do say myself, I quite love the way the poppies are turning out (notice how I say that NOW after I have worked hours and complained constantly about them?).  You know, I don't know how I ever made them work out. It must be that angel that's got my back.


The other part of this post is the DESTRUCTION of my painting!!!  Ha ha ha ha ha (maniacal laughter).  I told you before-many pages back, that it was okay to throw away a painting when it's not going to work no matter what.  Then I related a little while later how I almost got my husband to take a chain saw to another-thank goodness he wasn't in the mood to do it at that crazy time.  Back to this one.  In another post I showed this one and said that I was going to work on it and show you the progress-the post about sometimes you have to ruin a painting to make it work.  Well, I just plain old DON'T CARE ANY MORE about this one.  I made a print of it when it was at a very good point.  I have a record of it.  I wish I had done that with another painting I did of a blue house in the avenues (calling all garbage men:  anyone have that one?).  So...to make sure I don't change my mind this time I cut it with my scissors

and it went into the waste basket last night (sound of hands spanking each other).  What a relief that was!

8 comments:

  1. I've always rather liked destroying paintings. At college they were mostly stolen, and since college I do away with them myself. It's the idea of spending several weeks on a job, then wiping the slate clean in an instant. Very liberating for the soul. Never to be too satisfied.

    Ah, sunday morning. Bisou, Cro.

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  2. Oh so liberating, tis true. Years ago my sister and I went to the same art teacher (Robert Rumel and my best art teacher ever). Robert prided himself, at that time, that he could fix ANY painting. My sister had brought one in that was so too awful for words-couldn't express how bad it was. Robert tried for about 2 hours to fix that painting while we stood by with very amused faces. At the end of that time he said, "I can't fix this painting. It's unfixable!" We all laughed ourselves to death and Suzanne threw it away. You know I think it's wonderful to have an art teacher that will share their defeats along with their failures. It gives one hope. That's why I do this. I want others to know that even someone that has had some very successful work can fail miserably. It's so telling when your children just love it when you make a mistake and catch you at it. We all want to see that others make mistakes too and they survived.

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  3. I've enjoyed destroying a few in my time, too! Love the light in the painting in progress and the colour in the poppy details is great.

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  4. Thanks so much, Andrea! Something tells me that you might be British-the spelling of colour. Could I be right? What fun to meet new people from all over the place! Thanks for dropping by! Love to hear comments.

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  5. I don't know if I could destroy a painting but of course I don't paint so its not a worry but I think I would have found one little crazy over hores girl and given it away. My granddaughter would have killed for that picture!

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  6. Hmmm. Couldn't quite understand what you are talking about. Did you paint one horse painting and give it away?

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  7. This painting of the horses, cat and poppies is turning out to be beautiful. I like the subjects and your painting style.

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  8. Thanks so much! Now that I have finished my class I can get back to work on the painting. I have more I need to do after this for other people and need to move forward.

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