I confess. I really have no idea what I am doing when it comes to painting. That may seem strange coming from an artist, but it is how I feel every time I sit down to paint. I have had no formal training. When I was in high school I told  my art teacher that I did not like to paint because I was too impatient when it came to allowing time for the paint to dry. In my later 30’s, my mom gave me a Donna Dewberry set for Christmas. I got easily frustrated because my roses didn’t look like Donna’s roses – so I practiced and practiced – and over time developed my own “style”. God gave me the gift of being artistic – and I have been able to learn and grow over the years. So often though, I sit down and stare at a blank piece of paper, canvas or rock and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it. It is like writer’s block. Right now I am working on a painting that started out as being a tree felled over in a rain forest – I figured I could put some sort of critter in there somewhere. It evolved into two fallen trees by the edge of a stream – and that has evolved into one fallen tree that is partway submerged in the stream, lots of rocks laying around and a grizzly bear coming up out of the stream. Do I know how to paint a fallen tree? Not really. If you asked me to paint one, I wouldn’t be able to do it because I would be thinking about it  – but if I don’t think about it and just paint, I can do a pretty good tree. Sometimes I paint with my glasses off so I just work on placing color – highlights and shadows and don’t concern myself with the details. I  have an idea for my next painting – I can see it clearly in my head – but I question my ability to actually paint it and I know that when I sit down to start, I will again be saying in my head, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

17 Feb This entry was published on February 17, 2013 at 1:47 am. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged outdoor, paint, painting, wildlife. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.