Just Do One!

This is a plateau I've reached. Learning anything, you get to a point where you feel you've gone as far as you can go. You may even feel you are going backwards. I do. I've got a few of my paintings on my walls. Looking at them, I think that's good. How did I do that? And not sure I could do it now... You get lazy. You get complacent. You get tired. We are still in the midst of a Covid pandemic. Not looking for sympathy, I wanted to paint, was even looking forward to painting, felt compelled to paint! And I've just been diagnosed with cellulitis. Into the fourth week, I rang the doctor's. Thankfully, I'm taking antibiotics now and starting to feel much better.

As usual, parts of this I do like - the building, the tree, the banner. What I can't do yet is paint people in a crowd. Looking at Arms for Arms' Sake, part one in the series, I jumped straight in, hoping that people would emerge after a cursory read of Hashim Akib's Vibrant Acrylics. It didn't work in this one either. This is possibly worse! And yet, in the negative space, figures are appearing, which is interesting. How is that happening?

It told me I needed to do some more studious reading of the text. I realised I had started, but hadn't gone far enough with the choice of paints. You might say (and I hope you will) you are learning, practising. You've never painted people before, like this. And I'd agree. I'm not down. I've reached a plateau, as I say. Time to pause, do some reading, maybe, look at other artists to see how they paint crowd scenes and buildings. Above all, be gentle and kind to myself. Despite the lack of clear people described, it was great to do. Sometimes, what you do isn't very good. And that's a stage you need to go through too.

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I love the colours. There is one more in this series, and I'm hoping I can improve in all areas. But it doesn't take away from painting. What you think, after all, is secondary. I hope you have an opinion, give a response. Yet, it may seem selfish, but this is my work, my style and my mistakes. I do it for me. I own it all.