This is actually more like daily painting number 15… but it’s the first I am posting so it’s the first to get a number!
I’m starting this blog today, because today I failed at my painting. It might not look like a failure, but after six hours of tedious work, the final product is just not up to par with my expectations… And that’s okay! I need a place to organize and share my thoughts in order to turn this failure into future success! Here goes:
I just spent around 6 hours on this small painting. I did it in a dark space, crammed into my poorly lit bathroom doorway, and learned some important things:
- Don’t paint in the dark. If you can’t see your palette clearly, if you can’t see your canvas clearly, you will mix colors that don’t vibe well together and put down messy, incomplete marks
- Mix your palette, then paint. I began this painting as a value study so I didn’t mix my paints. It evolved into a color painting and I never mixed the paints to begin. This lead to me spending way too much time mixing, recreating small quantities of color over and over, and having my palette turn into an unorganized mess. A little spontaneous mixing is okay, but you will ideally have big pools of color to pull from.
- I need to gesso the aluminum composite tiles I’m using. They’re too slick and the paint just slides right off the surface. This also could be avoided by premixing my colors and putting down more paint on the surface. I think I’ll try that next time before I gesso, just to be clear on the biggest issue here: too thin of paint due to not mixing my palette first, or too slick of a painting surface.
- My painting fell short of where I hoped it would be, and that is a success. It’s painful. Really uncomfortable. I spent six hours on a tiny painting and it’s embarrassing me to look at my work. The details are not as delicate or graceful as I’d like and the colors around the eye in particular are not as harmonious as I prefer. I know what it could have been… but I learned to mix my palette first, gesso the surface I was using, and to light my work station better. I have left with more knowledge of how to make a successful painting. That deserves a pat on the back.
Some quotes on failure, courtesy of Google. Thank you google!
Until tomorrow…. ☺️