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Thursday, March 07, 2013

The Studio Cat ~ WIP 1





Sorry it's taken me so long to post an update. I wanted to take my sweet time deciding how to approach this style of painting. Tranferring a drawing to working paper would lose the spontaneity so I freehanded my sketch instead. Then I 'danced' around this for days, trying to choose a palette, etc. The trouble with this method is there comes a tipping point when one loses momentum and fear sets in. Fear is the death of creativity. I grabbed my new colors (in this case DS Quin. Burnt Scarlet, DS Prussian blue, DS Undersea Green and also a tube of Quin. gold) and dove in. I knew I could achieve a full range of values with these colors so I held my breath and took the plunge. Right away I saw it begin to tighten up on me. At that point it was time to walk away and regroup. Today I forged ahead with the cat and immediately thought I'd lost the painting. I took it off the easel and set it up in my living room against a shelf to get a long view and there it was...the painting I envisioned was underway! Why is it so hard to trust my instincts and let go of control?

2 comments:

Judith Farnworth Art said...

Coming along beautifully Billie, can see what you evisage as well... I agree we can get paralysed by overthinking..often better to just wade in, maybe having to do the painting more than once but learning along the way?

Billie Crain said...

Thank you and I agree completely, Judith. :)