No matter what we do in life we should always strive to do better. Being better human beings would be the most important place to work on ourselves. Putting that aside, for the time being, I am trying to push through to another level in my painting. It takes time, patience and work. I do get discouraged. Every artist will tell you about the voices in their heads (no I haven’t lost it – not yet) that aid in that discouragement. I am persistent or perhaps just stubborn, so I push those negative thoughts aside and I press on.
Sometimes the best way to overcome doubt is to trace where you’ve been and see how far you’ve come. That’s where I’m going with this posting. It started with reorganizing my websites. With everything wiped out from my old site and starting over, I’m faced with a question of what paintings to post. At this juncture I’m going to go with a less is more idea. Before I do that I’m thinking a little retrospection is in order. I’ve posted two portfolios, one of watercolor paintings and one of oil paintings. I’ve selected one painting from each year that I’ve been painting as a full-time effort. That would stretch across fifteen years, but who’s counting.
Currently, I spend a great deal more time developing my paintings. Because of that, I don’t have nearly as many pieces in my current portfolio. It’s not a race though, is it? For quite some time I have felt as though I needed to catch up on lost time. My age is probably showing through when I say that I realize that I don’t need to rush or “play catch-up”. I just need to work on making better paintings. That’s what I intend to do. Looking back on where I came from, I think I’m doing just fine in the sense that I have improved. We are all perpetual students and as long as I see progress, I will continue to push on.
You can see my timeline of oil paintings by following this link. My timeline of watercolor paintings is at this link.