Monday, November 5, 2012

failure and fear

Last night I tried to paint up zombie #111 of the 1000 zombies art project and failed. So I tried again ... which also resulted in a failure, though not quite as dramatically.


And then I got bummed out.

2 images in a row that totally sucked as far as I was concerned. 2 images of the same guy, the same picture even. The 2nd attempt wasn't as bad and I came back to it a couple times during the remainder of the evening and tweaked it a little, even managed to salvage it come the next morning in to something that I was much more pleased with. But all night long and in to most of today I couldn't stop thinking about that failure and how it made me feel.

So this morning I went back at failure #2 and kept tweaking it and playing with it and, as I said, managed to salvage it and eventually post it.


Then I stopped working and started beating myself up again, falling in to that pit of despair that so many other artists know all to well. I didn't want to even try oils again. I doodled, surfed the web, procrastinated in other ways and overall just avoided painting for the better part of today. After a while, and a nap, I faced my fear, admitted that I don't know shit about using oil paints, and took failure #1 and started rubbing, scrubbing and scratching the hells out of it. Then I picked up my brush and started using the left over oils and just slapped things around. After a few minutes an idea started forming in my head and I took a tooth pick and painted out this image.


So yeah ... I pretty much suck at oil painting, but thats okay. I know I suck ... I know I have a lot to learn and a long journey ahead if I want to paint the images I see in my head. I'm now ready to continue that journey ... unafraid and willing to fail.

 It's just better if I know it and admit it than try to hide from it and not do anything about it.

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