As a librarian often asked to help young adults choose a book, I always counselled following your heart. That is, always consider the choice to be a date, not a marriage; unless you are committed to the story by the end of a chapter or two, you politely say good night and move on to more promising prospects. Life's too short.
Paintings are a bit like that. An artist's basement is probably littered with bad dates; the good marriages hang on walls or sometimes reside under the bed, waiting for a change of season. The horrible ones might have seemed promising to start but revealed their unsuitability in a hurry. One particular horror began well but I saw its true nature when I started to work the winter tree shapes. Panicking, I decided to give them autumn leaves. The leaves were worse, and made the trees look like they were hung with wet socks.
Now I am not a palette-knife painter. I am slow-and-steady-wins-the-race to the core. But the trees had to be fixed! So I grabbed the palette knife and started troweling. Well, you can see where this is going.
But can I simply throw the abomination out? Of course not. That canvas was expensive! And there's a lot of pricey paint on it too. So it sulks, face to the wall, whining that I didn't give it a fair try, and couldn't we go out again? I so admire both Mary and Christopher Pratt, who made a daily occasion of committing bad dates to the flames of permanent oblivion.
Don't expect to see a picture of that one of mine here. Ever. Instead, I want to talk about my current steady; I believe you've met. We've spent about fifty hours together and I think he's a keeper.
Paintings are a bit like that. An artist's basement is probably littered with bad dates; the good marriages hang on walls or sometimes reside under the bed, waiting for a change of season. The horrible ones might have seemed promising to start but revealed their unsuitability in a hurry. One particular horror began well but I saw its true nature when I started to work the winter tree shapes. Panicking, I decided to give them autumn leaves. The leaves were worse, and made the trees look like they were hung with wet socks.
Now I am not a palette-knife painter. I am slow-and-steady-wins-the-race to the core. But the trees had to be fixed! So I grabbed the palette knife and started troweling. Well, you can see where this is going.
But can I simply throw the abomination out? Of course not. That canvas was expensive! And there's a lot of pricey paint on it too. So it sulks, face to the wall, whining that I didn't give it a fair try, and couldn't we go out again? I so admire both Mary and Christopher Pratt, who made a daily occasion of committing bad dates to the flames of permanent oblivion.
Don't expect to see a picture of that one of mine here. Ever. Instead, I want to talk about my current steady; I believe you've met. We've spent about fifty hours together and I think he's a keeper.
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