For what it’s worth, I’m now on Twitter. And while it’s fun, and is the perfect blogging solution for the attention-impaired, I’m already annoyed at it because half of the tweets I left today have disappeared. I’ve made 35 updates so far, and only 18 are visible. Other people seem to be having this problem too, so I’ll continue to use it for a while and see if the issue gets resolved. If it doesn’t, screw it–I’ve plenty of other time-sinks at my disposal.
I realized today that I have at least half a dozen paintings in the works that have all ended up falling by the wayside and left unfinished as I move on to other things. I’m pretty far along on all of them, and all of them are looking good and definitely worth finishing. But I keep jumping along to the next project, thinking that I will come back and finish the first one later, or that I can move back and forth between multiple projects simultaneously, and it hasn’t been working out that way.
And it doesn’t feel like boredom, either. I know what it’s like to get to a certain point with a painting and realize that I no longer give a damn about it, no matter how well it’s coming along. I like each of these pieces, and want to finish them, and I strongly believe that I actually will finish them. But for now it’s a little frustrating to realize that I’ve been doing a lot of painting and have nothing of consequence actually done.
On the other hand, the fact that I’ve been painting at all, and painting nearly every single day, is a big deal. Given the choice of making lots of half-finished paintings and sitting in my studio staring at a blank canvas, unable to make that first mark, I’ll definitely take this.
The most recent one I’ve stalled out on is a copy of Frederick Leighton’s Biondina that I took on as part of a monthly challenge on the WetCanvas portraiture forum. I liked the softness of her face, and since my paintings all tend to have a rather hard look to them I thought I could pick up a few pointers by making a copy. And I’ve managed to get just a little bit further along than this:
I’m happy with what I’ve got. It’s looking good so far. But it’s looked pretty much like this for ten days now, sitting untouched on my small desktop easel while I’ve gone off working on other things. I do have a deadline; I’m supposed to have her done by the end of this month, but it isn’t a hard deadline, and if I failed to meet it at all I doubt anyone would notice.
So I have lots of creative energy flowing right now; more than I have in years. And I am productive after a fashion, which makes me feel good. Only I’m not really productive at all–I haven’t much to show for all this activity–and that’s been nagging at me for a while.
I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with this.
Maybe finishing Biondina would be a good start.
