Some while back, I had two posts about a painting I was working on. I finally got back to that painting.

Find post 1 here.

Find post 2 here.

So this is where I ended last time:

When I looked at it today, I felt like I’d lost the depth in the piece. Now I knew I had several layers of paint beneath, so it was a matter of adding glazes to pull those other layers out. Plus, I felt this was a good starting point if I wanted to get more depth. So I started in.

Yeah, there’s a time when knowing what should happen just isn’t working out. Here’s a picture after I’ve added in several more layers of glazing.

So I’m getting the depth, but I’ve covered up all that it had going for it before. At this point, I’m a bit frustrated and wondering why I started to paint today.

But I remind myself that the only wasted paint is that still in the tube and to trust the process.

After that picture, I do wish I’d taken a few more pictures along the way. There were times I hated myself and what i was doing — Dawn, you’re screwing it up again, stop touching!

It’s hard to keep telling that critical voice to shut up and to keep going while it’s nagging you the whole way. Yet, I did.

Here’s the piece when I finally said enough is enough:

I feel like my conversation with this piece was more forced than flowing. I wasn’t receptive to the information coming from the piece about it wanted to be. There were a couple of times when I feel that I should have taken it in an entirely different direction. I did ask if it really wanted to be a space nebula at one point because I felt it could easily become another flower vase painting, or a dark forest, or even something different that those options. The piece wanted me to keep working. And I almost gave up long before I reached this point. I feel that if I had, it would have been flatter.

Every piece painted is more practice. I learn something new each time. I think this one was definitely telling me I was trying for too colorful in too small of a space.

It’s done. It’ll be catalogued and put out to sale at some point. I have no doubt that someone will love it want to have it. It will find a home. Until then, I’m glad that it spent the time with me so I could practice and learn.

Thank you for sharing this tale with me.

Cheers.