The art of relationship

I have been painting the last few days in oils. I have also begun the process of doing a series of watercolors. I have the beginnings of a mixed media piece on the way. I am up to my eye balls in art and I am loving it. But it is a love/hate relationship sometimes, well maybe not hate, but I do this highly dissatisfied thing. The artist is intense and she knows what she wants and she is dedicated to doing it. Some times at a great sacrifice of time and energy. But it is love and it is good and it is what she does. It is passion.

Let me back peddle. I am finishing up oils I started two years ago. I have six in the works and they are large. That means time, lots of paint time. The watercolors will go faster. Watercolor in my primary art language. I have been doing them since I was a little girl. I absolutely love to watercolor, not so much drama in them. We get along well. I have the reference photos printed out and the paper sized. The next step which I thought I would do tonight but ran out of time, is put down a simple outline. My outlines help me not get lost on the paper. They give me a feel for the space I am working in.

The mixed media piece is a concept piece and I am still working out the reference work and concept pieces are usually very emotional or trippy. I wanted to do this to enter a show, but I can tell there is going to be a good deal of work in this to do it right. So I will allow it to work itself out from a concept to art. (Like giving birth, real drama)

For the show I now want to submit the portrait of Me, Elysa and Judy; Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil. People who have seen it seem to like it. But I have some serious problems with it and lots of work. I need to submit a photo next Friday. If accepted I have six weeks to finish the piece, plenty of time. I am just going for it.

All this said to orient you to what I wanted to say. When I work on a piece I have lots of time to think. All kinds of things come up. It can be wild. Not that tonight was so wild. But I have been praying about something in particular that I have been having trouble feeling and accepting. And it is out there now. I don’t know how this works. I guess I just am in better tune with myself and my emotions and I have lots of time to listen to God.

I was thinking how relationships are like paintings. How as they are in progress they aren’t always much to look at. Sometimes I don’t even like to show the paintings because the colors aren’t right. There are usually three layers of paint to be put down, until I feel the piece is finished. I am referring to the oils. Each layer of color I get closer to the shade I really want. It takes time, it takes patience, it takes skill and I have an idea of where I am going and I have done this before so I have some confidence that it works. The finished product is beautiful. You can get close up and look and it is beautiful. But that isn’t true in the process.

It looks bad sometimes, the colors are off, the canvas shows through, the edges are rough, the constrast bad and I see after each session what needs to happen next. Sometimes there is too much to do and there is wet paint and unless you want a mess, you just have to stop for a few days. You have to step back and look at it. I go back and look several times a day. I get other people to look too and tell me what they see. I am a lot more patient with painting sometimes than relationships. But I got to think about it tonight and I am ok with this process in real life. I think it will be beautiful.