It's Not Easy

Working on this new series hasn't been easy. I have already completed one painting, only to scrape back the whole thing and start again. It just wasn't working for me. I didn't feel like the different elements of the piece were cohesive and flowing. I couldn't make sense of it so it got scraped back.

I am having a hard time finding who I am in this work and it's even harder when I keep forgetting that I have a bunch of other options besides using wax as my top and final layer. I forget that I used to use a lot more mediums and techniques when I was younger, in my work, and it's okay to "rediscover" these now. I can pull from my past and be okay with it because that doesn't mean I am moving backwards, I'm just "digging into my bag of skills". I can incorporate all of my skills and knowledge in this work and that's okay. Seems pretty logical, I know, but somehow I forgot that.

"Discovering" this made me feel better about scraping back my recent piece and starting again. The colored wax layer wasn't working for me and now I know I don't have to use that in my work. I have some ideas on incorporating some drawings into the piece and will see where that takes me with that one. In the meantime, I also started a fourth piece since it's good for me to work on multiple pieces at a time. Here is the underpainting of the next piece:

The left side of the latest piece.

The woman is far from being done and the man has needs some work too. I have this idea of targets for this piece, as in hitting/ missing the target in a relationship. Relationships are so random sometimes. It's all about timing and meeting someone when not only is the timing right for you, but also for them. The chances of getting that timing exactly right, and getting right on target, is pretty slim, hence so many relationships starting and ending. I think that's what this piece will be about.