Girl of Trees, or The Other Side of SunsetGolden Fluid Acrylic, watercolor pencil, paper, 5x8" moleskine
I don't know where she came from.
I had the urge to draw a girl. I painted over her. You can still see some of the watercolor pencil lines. But everything I drew, I painted over. And everything I painted over once, was painted over again. And again.
Nothing came out like I expected it.
Everything was revised, not for whatever vague vision had been in my head initially, but for what was, what felt right. How the colors bounced off of each other, or how the dark needed the light.
Perhaps also a little bit of the winter trees outside my window, holding the reflected glow of the sun going down against the pale cold sky.
I challenge you to not know. To not be sure of what you are doing.
I challenge you to take life for it's own flavor, and not the spice you wished it had.
I challenge you to realize the moment you are in.
To savor it.
To recognize the joy in living, to say yes when the world around you wants to say be safe, be sure, don't risk being hurt.
I challenge you to believe in yourself.
Go with it.
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5 comments:
Drawn to the image and moved again by the written words... thanks for being true and encouraging it in others. Love that you are a writer and an artist.
This is a beautiful portrait. Like you and not you. The blue-grey is stunning and I love the mood.
'I challenge you to not know'
That sentence really struck a chord with me. My initial reaction was discomfort, perhaps because there is a part of me that feels safe when I can dissect, organise, understand, research, discuss, learn, do things right the first time round. All in a mission to stop me from feeling lost in 'I don't know's'.
How can I still do these things without the control element? How can I embrace the 'I don't know's' whilst still wanting to learn everyday?
Thankyou for bringing up these questions for me.
p.s I've reworked alot of pieces in the past and i always hated the feeling. Like i had lost the initial spark and vitality. I remember being forbidden to use erasers in my art classes at school. we had to work around our dissatsfaction. By painting over, were you erasing your 'dissatisfaction, or working with it?
Out of curiosity, i would love to know how the girl looked before.
Before, after the drawing, the background was brown with large yellow polka dots and the dress was yellow with small brown polka dots. And the girl was blond. The face was mostly the same. Crazy, right?
And as to the discomfort of not knowing, khairun, oh, yeah I know it. I am a recovering perfectionist, and over the years I have learned to trust, not the product, but the process. Learned to let go of the perfectionism.
And how did I do that? By keeping the stakes low. There's a reason why I paint in my journal, paint small pieces. And painting every day for much of a year also contributed. I learned that no single piece is all that significant. It's the journey.
All I can say is keep going. Keep challenging yourself in small ways until you get more comfortable with the challenge,then up the stakes and challenge yourself more.
And thank you squirrel and elizabeth. :)
The bird is flying high, but it's small and her eyes are on another page. But, it's very beautiful and much like Winter.
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