When To Stop

It will be a real achievement for me to actually quit stalling around here and just get to it. The other morning I put out the ole black easel. That should have been the first warning, right then and there. But oh no, I just went on as if I really intended to finish up that inventory count. Ha! Next thing I know a canvas magically appears and that old basket of acrylics. Now I really have a love/hate relationship with the acrylics because I have absolutely no clue what to do with them. The only things I have ever used are oils and these "other" things just make me crazy. I decided to just start mashing them around and see what happened - only problem is that it happens all too quickly. Well, duh! Isn't that what everyone loves about acrylic? I guess I'll learn to adapt and use this to my advantage.

When I paint, I end up painting at least 4 pieces on each canvas. The first one is the "idea" barely sketched in with charcoal or just a base coat of "color". That's what I did this time - just covered that canvas with a nice neutral linen hue. That looks good in itself!

Next thing is to fill in with some sort of design or representation of an object. This time, however, I just stick some "stuff" on top of the linen color. Maybe some neat paper that came in some packaging the other day. Yes, that looks pretty cool. And maybe a piece of bubble wrap just for fun. No - let's use that to put some texture into the paint! Really neat looking now. And then some more color and some squiggles here and there.

Then just let that dry and come back and do some more "stuff" - I bet it won't even look the same by the time I finish that. I at least thought to take some photos of what I did so I can see where it fell off the wagon!

I think I like what I am seeing - and this is the hard part for me everytime. Knowing when to quit is just as important as knowing what you are doing! And I always miss the stopping point it seems and end up with something even I have no clue about!

Well I did manage to just stop - walk away, and then come back later. Later............well, later I just put some varnish on it so I couldn't start messing around with it again! And now I am done.