"Breathe!"
11x14" pencil on bristol board
WIP
It was this past Friday. I had just realized that the painting I had planned to post and had been working on for the previous 3 days, still needed at least 3 more days work. I had nothing in progress and had just painted newly arrived canvases black.
I began to panic and decided to do a floating face so I wouldn't miss a day. In the midst of that drawing, which is above and still not completed, I began to feel very uneasy because it wasn't going fast enough or looking like anything I would want to post.
It was then I realized that a semi-permanent knot had taken up residence in the pit of my stomach and that I was waking up each morning panicked, wondering what I could find to paint, wondering if the painting I did work on the day before was dry enough and would I be able to finish it in time, would it be good enough, and on and on and on.
I wasn't painting in the spirit of the challenge. I was painting to have my ego stroked and I was not enjoying myself, at all. I went online and instead of checking the posts for that day, I read Leslie's blog entry. Her words jumped out at me! She basically said that painting for 30 days isn't about creating 30 masterpieces...
I realized I was getting depressed and anxious, the studio began to resemble a detention room and I had lost any desire to create. Clearly, this wasn't the point of the challenge and I needed to step back and rethink my approach. I gave myself a few days to think about it and came to the conclusion that I would tap out and get back to my normal schedule of painting a few hours a day on an ongoing piece at my leisure.
I guess I felt guilty because the next day I decided to clean out the store room...a job I've been putting off for the last two years. Two problems were immediately realized...I'm a packrat and I have far too much inventory to keep. A sale of my work is being planned as we speak, so if you're interested, feel free to check here in the coming days and weeks.
I feel much better and relieved. I apologize for not completing the 30 days and thank everyone for their support and encouragement.
On top of that, I had an hour telephone reading by medium Patrick Matthews this past Wednesday and my feet still haven't touched the ground. Tim validated the movie scene I wrote about a few weeks ago and mentioned everything I had asked him to the day of the reading. I'm still trying to process it all but with the anniversary coming up I thought it best to find some peace and I certainly wasn't finding it in my manic approach to the challenge.
So, I tried. It didn't work. Maybe I'll experiment with some quick studies and see how that goes and try again next time. Thanks again and I so hope I haven't disappointed. I'm realizing that I'm not failing anymore, I'm just finding out what doesn't work for me and I feel really good about that.
