Threads of Thought

Mermaid. Oil and acrylic on sustainable wood. 24”x18”. 2010. 

So I will confess that this was supposed to be in my Animalopolis show, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish it before the opening. I hated it so much, at first, that it sat for 3 weeks with only the acrylic splashed haphazardly all over the background, and the girl drawn too darkly in pencil. All I saw were flaws and it was difficult to become inspired enough to paint. Perhaps she hated me as well, for not doing a better job on her face. After a little bit of sanding to erase small bits of the background, I finally got up the courage to paint her, fixing all of the problems that I once saw. Now she is beautiful, alive. I really love this painting. 

Learning how to fix my mistakes has been very important for me. It’s one thing to have a piece that begins beautifully, smoothly, and the whole process is as romantic as you might dream of. It’s another to have something appear to you that only reminds you of your short-comings. You never know if the next step will be enough to bring things to life or if you are just wasting precious hours on something that should have been abandoned while you were still ahead. I’m being a bit melodramatic and I feel like I’m repeating myself, but this is how it appears to me when I’m all wrapped up in my work and nothing else is as important as this painting.