This new painting emerged out of a great deal of struggle. Two and a half weeks ago I started a new pose on an 18x36 gessoed panel. The drawing and composition were a good start and I proceeded to paint only to feel completely stymied. The paint seemed to be soaking in and getting chalky. Not at all like oils on panel usually respond. I use really good quality oil paints, so materials didn't seem to be the possible problem. My immediate conclusion: it must be the painter (of course.) I continued to work really hard, piling on the paint. The solution to everything is usually "more paint", but by the following Monday when my teacher arrived I was terribly frustrated. She immediately said "something's wrong", and encouraged me to "move on, get a new start". I hate to quit, and was beating myself up something awful. It's easy to get so DOWN (sensitive? moody? fear of failure?) So easy to fall into negative self-recrimination.
But I'm here to listen and learn from Sharon, so I bucked up and took her advice.
She moved me to the other model in the room, Jesse. And I found a linen support I had laying around in the locker room. A fresh start, but with a lot shorter time to work on the painting. Yikes! But, Jesse has such character, great muscle definition and skin color, a great look, and I love the peace sign earring. As it turned out, the whole thing was a pleasure to paint. And what started as a bomb turned into a success. And relatively quickly, for me. Lessons learned: sometimes a fresh start is just the ticket. And, Sharon's theory is that the gesso (acrylic) I used to prep the panel was the problem. It probably hadn't properly "cured". Live and learn. . .
