April 19, 2022 — OMG, the battle begins for the soul of the painting. What a day. Woke up with a bad migraine and rolled out the nodes at the base of my skull, ouch, and took 2 half doses in fairly rapid succession of Excedrin migraine formula, went back to bed for a hour (this was at 5AM), then got up and limped off to work anyway. I knew this peach tree painting would be a challenge because scenes like this run the risk of being incredibly cliché. I mean, little round peaches nestled in a peach tree, that’s the whole painting? OMG, cliché is not a strong enough word for it. It’s a Karen Carpenter song! — And so much hard work! No wonder I normally stick with wild nature. I did have ((I hope, possibly?) a breakthrough by changing the sky color to something much more vivid (turquoise blue) and added sections of vivid white as well. That’s better I think?? (Sounds pretty cliché in itself, lol!) And I do love the intense brushwork whenever I get “over it” and sick of things. And I think that’s where I will find the soul of the painting is by getting a lot looser with it. Not plein air loose, which just isn’t me, but maybe leave more yellow underpaint showing like the section from today? Thicker strokes, a little more reckless. No more “good girl” shit. Put Bowie on the project. (Can you hear me Major Tom?)
No, I can’t! Lol, honestly, this is so typical. Every third painting, I really do not have the slightest idea how to go about what I need to go about, because I don’t know what that about is! Fortunately, I DO know it when I see it. So I keep nudging till I find it. It’s a relationship, really, and that’s what love does. Ask this, try that, be curious, never give up. I always end up satisfied, but so often, somewhere in the painting, I’m at wit’s end like this. I wish, at this point, I could trust the process a bit more. But nope, here I am, no answers!