Painted my anxiety and it actually came out beautiful
ok so I've been circling this one piece for like three weeks, a view from my kitchen window at dusk, the one I paint over and over, but with all this heavy gray-green raincloud coming in. And I kept ruining it because I was trying to make it look "dramatic" and "serious art" or whatever and it just kept coming out dead and muddy.
Then yesterday I was in a mood, like genuinely anxious about money and whether I'm wasting my savings on this full-time thing, and I just grabbed my brush and went at it without thinking. And I let the water take it where it wanted, didn't fight it, didn't try to control every bloom. And it's the most alive thing I've painted in months. The clouds look like they're moving. My partner came home and said "that one feels like you."
I think I've been so scared of making bad art that I forgot the good stuff comes from the same place. Anyway it's drying on my table and I keep walking past and going "oh, there you are." Just wanted to tell someone who'd get it 🙂
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oh I love this so much. that thing where you've been trying so hard to make it work and then you just... give up and it happens on its own. I've had that with pastels where I'm overworking a face and then I'm too tired to care anymore and suddenly the likeness is there. like you had to stop forcing it for the real thing to show up.
and the anxiety piece, I think that tension finds its way into the work whether you want it there or not. you let it in instead of fighting it and the piece is better for it. that's brave honestly.
would love to see it if you're sharing 🙏
yes, that thing where you finally stop strangling it and it breathes 😅 it's like the bit of you that's trying too hard is exactly what's in the way. I do the same with portraits, ten passes at an eye and it's dead, then one loose sketch where I'm not even looking and it catches something real.
and yeah, that tension seeps in no matter what. might as well let it sit there instead of pretending it's not.