Okay, as you know, I've begun trying to do landscapes, and I've found it's really, really different from doing animals. In my defense, I see landscape artists who try to do animals, and for the most part, they do pretty well, but they just don't quite get it. So I understand that there are "tricks to every trade," even when it's still the trade of painting images.
I'm a perfectionist by nature (no, I don't like it; I think it's a major character flaw), so I'm trying way, way, way too hard at these landscape paintings. Last evening, I was painting pretty much for the third time (on the same canvas, by the way) a painting I'm working on of a pretty scene near where I live with a falling-down shack, sitting by a creek. I was really having some problems with color and light and too much detail. I keep a timer so I'm forced to stop every five minutes to step way back and assess what I'm doing and where I'm going with my painting. But I think I need to shorten it to three minutes, maybe. I made a couple of bad strokes with way too much light on my brush, got absolutely disgusted with myself, and slapped paint all over the canvas, probably saying a few words that I ought not to have said. Then in a panic, I tried to wipe all the offending marks off, which, of course, made a muddy mess of the whole thing. Anyway, I acted in a very childish way and swore that I was never going to paint again, that I was a failure, etc., etc. And, of course, too, I was awake most of the night, thinking about what I should have done differently.
Yes, I have a love/hate relationship with painting. But again, as I've said many times, I'm compelled to keep trying. We'll see. I'm giving myself one hour today to get some sort of painting done of this pretty little shack, and I will list my result.
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