Waaaaa….. none of this painting stuff is going well AT ALL………..”Lay all your troubles down…..lay them down on me…. One more hand-me-down” ….that’s what my ipod is singing out. Don’t you love MatchBox Twenty?
Wish I could do that…just lay my troubles down….troubles with these %#1* panels that are not working for me. Maybe that’s what I should do ….say “these are not working, will never work”….then when it doesn’t matter, just put something down and put them away and get out a BIG canvas instead of killing myself on these little 12 x 12” panels. No, I’m determined…….sooner or later they have to shape up into something although it may be far removed from the vague idea I had in mind.
My new mantra needs to be “nothing in mind, nothing in mind………just do it”. Have fun, play…….yeah, sure! Well it IS fun, when it’s going well. Of course, then I beat myself up that maybe it went too easy and isn’t worth anything if it was that easy. I must remind myself right now that there are too many times when it isn’t working that way, easy that is.
I gotta face it, I’m basically not a “just have fun” person. Everything I start doing ends up being serious. Why is that?
Hummm…………now maybe I should get out some collage stuff. Maybe adding a little element here and there will strike a chord in me somewhere.
Cheryl,
We abstract artists have a particular challenge, which I think of as "making something out of nothing." Your frustrations are so familiar.
As for "just have fun"…and "play"..I think spontaneity is good but that happens best when you have an overall idea to roam around in. I mean, for me randomness just tends to lead to more randomness rather than adding up to anything meaningful. On the other hand forcing an idea too hard doesn't seem to work either. On a good day it seems to me there's a balance between "playing" in the sense of letting things flow, not over-thinking them–and "seriousness" in the sense of using the ol' left brain, analyzing and evaluating.
Looking at your more recent post I see that things are moving along–
great!