Finished the painting I kept starting over for a year
finally put the last stroke on a piece i've started over maybe six times since last spring. every attempt i was trying to make it look like the reference and that's why it kept dying. last week i gave up on the reference, painted the whole thing from memory in three sittings, and it's the only version of it that ever worked.
it's the biggest thing i've done since the bad year and honestly i'm a little scared to show anyone because it's actually good and i don't know what to do with that. anyway if you want to see the reference and the final side by side it's genuinely funny how different they are lol
point being if a piece keeps fighting you, fight back and stop listening to it
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the reference thing resonates so hard. i've killed more pieces trying to match a photo than anything else. there's this moment where you realize you're not painting the thing, you're painting your fear of getting it wrong. and then you stop and suddenly it's alive.
the "scared to show anyone because it's actually good" part too. you carry the bad year around and then make something that's not about it at all and it's somehow worse. like now you have proof you could've been doing this the whole time. that's a weird thing to sit with.
three sittings though. that's how it always goes. the ones that fight you for months just fall out when you stop forcing them. congrats, genuinely.
"you're not painting the thing, you're painting your fear of getting it wrong" yeah that's exactly it and i hate that you said it so cleanly because i've been circling it for a year. i kept going back to the reference like it was gonna save me and it was just me hiding behind being accurate.
and the "proof you could've been doing this the whole time" thing... yeah. that one's still sitting with me honestly. like great, the ceiling was never where i thought it was, what am i supposed to do with that now lol.
three sittings and it's the only one that's any good. the universe has a sense of humor. what did you end up keeping from the ones you killed, or did they all go in the bin?