When you hit a wall . . .

. . .  just keep on painting   Perhaps I’m not the only artist who occasionally hits a wall—the wall of questions and doubts.  We writers call that “writers block”, something I have never allowed to discourage me; I kept right on writing through the block.

So it’s logical to approach a painter’s wall the same way, and keep right on painting through the wall.  While doing this recently, I had the following dialogue with Myself:

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Myself:  Who am I to call myself an artist anyway?  I simply began painting 10 years ago, at age 72.  Never went to art school.  Never thought I had any talent—just a love for art.

I:  Shame on you for thinking that way.  You, of all people.  You are always telling others that everyone has an artist inside them, and they should have the courage to try it if they have the desire!

Myself:  But lately it seems that I am plagiarizing myself.  All I’m painting are flowers, and sometimes I wonder if flowers are the only thing I’m certain that I can paint!

I:  Lots of people paint the same thing over and over.  And lots of artists love to paint flowers.  Have you ever heard of Monet?

Myself:  Are you comparing me to Monet?  Shame on YOU!

I:  Of course none of us is comparable to him.  We are all different, and that’s the way God intended us to be.  But we can study the GREATS, and learn from them!  You are always telling other people to do that.  Yikes!  Why don’t you practice what you preach?

Myself:  Okay.  I get it.  I should encourage myself the way I like to encourage other people.  I’ll keep plugging along with my brushes.  I do love art with a PASSION!

I:  Good for you.  Now you are talking sensibly!  And even if you are on a flower painting roll, you can look for a different emphasis—like varying your colors or background, and finding a fresh focus of interest along with the flowers.  Then suddenly you’ll inadvertently (or maybe on purpose!) stick a cabin, fencepost, river, or trail in among the flowers.

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Whew!  That’s over.  This week Myself took the advice of I, so We will switch to the first person voice.

I spent a couple of evenings browsing through my flower art books to see what might make a difference.  The idea of working on the background (or in the above result, the surround) grabbed me.  As always, I let my colors blend on the paper—and then added every texture agent I had on hand (salt, granulating medium, texture medium, crackle medium, dabbing with tissue, etc.).  That was so much fun, so I gave the vase the same cavalier treatment.  And named the painting “Rustic Vase”.

Now I will pass on some encouragement to YOU—the Reader*.  If you tend to hit a wall, don’t let it slow you down.  Just keep on painting through the wall!

Margaret L. Been — June 9th, 2016

*My stats page shows that you Readers are all over the world—on every continent and on many islands as well. This excites me more than I can say.  🙂

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