So Close I Can Taste it!

The bane of my existence for the past 4-5 months is almost done! It's weird how artists have different attachments to different paintings. Most of the time it's a good one, other times, not so much. As those of you who have been following my blog know, I have not enjoyed completing this painting. I don't like the larger-than-what-I-am-doing-now white space. I don't like how the skin tones look on these ladies. I don't like how I am painting this in general. I almost whited it out completely on a few occasions, which would have been a pain because since I am using wax over this, regular gesso (which contains acrylic and won't bond with wax) wouldn't have worked. I would have had to cover it with white oil paint or old school rabbit skin gesso (I don't even know where to start in order to find that). Covering it with oil paint (as I have done on a previous painting) makes the surface too slick to work so my shading and skin tone looks even more cartoony. So basically, starting a new painting on this panel would have been a pain in the butt.  I really didn't want to do that.

I tried working on this piece a few times, got frustrated and put it aside MANY times. It just wasn't "gelling" with me. It was like I had this mental block and couldn't get past it to finish this piece. But, it needed to be done. I have been painting small pieces lately and had a request from a gallery, who is showing my work, to send them some large paintings. I figured this would be a good time to finish this and FINALLY get it off my plate. I needed to move on.

I am happy to say that I have finally made some progress! I decided that it would be done this week and I think it may be done today. I just had to force myself to finish it. I worked on bits of it in between other paintings and yesterday, having no other paintings to distract me, I really focused on it. My mental block seems to be gone.  I can't say that it's my favorite painting but it has some merit. It will be a nice one when finished, but more importantly, IT WILL BE DONE!