Recently I finished a painting and what a personal victory that has been.
For all I do to encourage creativity in people, I really struggle sometimes! I can start a project, but before I get close to finishing it I get bored, or frustrated because it's not going how I want, and I have new ideas popping into my head that are much more exciting and steal all my enthusiasm and motivation from whatever I was working on before.
What this means is I have a LOT of unfinished paintings upstairs in the box room that serves as my office/studio space, and not many finished ones.
In fact, be completely heart on sleeve honest here, a lot of my paintings are finished in one sitting, or they join the ranks of unfinished paintings, waiting patiently for me to pick them up again.
It's definitely something to do with how my brain works. After years of studying English literature and creative writing, my notebooks contain tonnes of first chapters (sometimes as many as the first five chapters), before I drift off. Poems though, I love writing poems. I take great pleasure in them. Again, it's a short thing that brings immense gratification (and dopamine release, obviously).
I've learnt to live with my mind and use it how it works best, so I tend to stick with the shorter, more impulsive creative outputs.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I started painting. By the end of the session I had a lovely, brightly coloured backdrop. I slept on it, and surprisingly felt a will to go back to it the following morning. Within 10 mins I hated it. I felt it had gone wrong. I felt I'd messed it up. I put it down, frustrated. It was another one for the pile.
Then a few days later, I was getting ready to start work (I work at home), and before I knew it, I'd picked it up and was drawing on it with felt tip. It was like my subconscious was in control, there was no thought process to picking it up, to starting drawing, I just did it.
I drew vines, curling, flowing lines, broken with emerging leaves. A quick and simple thing. But it was breakthrough, because I'd gone back to it the painting like it was calling me, like I was compelled without choice.
Suddenly, I fell in love with it. From this point I returned to it every day or so, adding extra layers of detail, painting the vines green and layering up the metallics .
Then, it was finished. It is beautiful. Pictures do not do justice to the way the metallics shine in the light. It's magical.
I feel liberated. I feel like I've broken down a lifelong barrier and created something I'm really proud of for the first time in ages. I also feel like I'm finding my style, my artistic voice, which is something I lost long ago and has eluded me since.
I'm now brimming over with excitement to paint more, and I'm starting the next one tonight. Hoowee! Exciting!
Do you like it? I'm thinking about organising a limited edition run of prints, and perhaps even selling the original. If you're interested then get in touch.
I've Had A Breakthrough - And Finished A New Painting
