“It’s harder to rouse yourself from a standstill than it is to keep moving”
- Frank Bruni
It was a beautiful day. The first full day of spring. The flowers were abundant, the trees gorgeous, the sky brilliant blue. My paint bag loaded and ready. After working nonstop in the studio for what seemed like forever, it was our first opportunity to get outside and enjoy the warm weather and paint. I felt like a kid let out of school for the summer, giddy with excitement and anticipation.
It sucked. I sucked. My paintings, and I use that term loosely here, were awful. U.G.L.Y. Never have I been tempted to tear a page out of my sketchbook, but at the end of that day I felt like setting it on fire. I tried again the next day, and the next. Still ugly. Another day. Maybe uglier. Instead of pulling myself out of a hole, it felt as though I was digging in deeper!
It seemed I had lost my ability to paint from life. Or had I?
There are those kinds of days where you think the sun will never come out. The cloud cover feels too thick to be broken. And then, an almost imperceptible shift occurs. A slight movement of a cloud and a tiny sliver of space opens up. The light pours through and the day is miraculously changed in an instant.
Just as quickly the light can be gone again and the day can return to dark and cloudy. But something has changed. Our perception of the day has been altered with the memory of the glimmer of light. That memory changes the clouds above us. Where there was once darkness, there is now hope, There is a lightness to the days darkness. There is possibility. Seeing clouds and knowing that the light is behind them changes your perspective on the day. Now instead of seeing cloud cover, you begin to see blue sky openings.
.
“When the car runs out of gas we don’t call the car broken. It just needs gas.
Same thing with us…when we’re out of gas we might feel broken but really we just need to be filled up.
The metaphor is easy to understand.
The hard part is knowing what fills you up and having the guts to make time for it.” - Gabe Anderson
It is interesting how hard it is to get into the habit of something and how easy it is to get out of it. Even if you get a lot out of the habit. Even if you love it. And yet bad habits are easy to get into and hard to get out of. I have often wondered why it seems so backwards. Is it because we take the good for granted? Once things are going well, do we feel like we can ease up and not work so hard to maintain?
I have let my habit of painting from life in my sketchbook lapse. The reasons were legitimate…. sickness, show deadlines, family obligations, construction interruptions. Something had to give and my paint bag sat in the corner as I worked on my studio painting obligations. But there were repercussions, as there always are when you give up a good habit.
In the span of a couple of months of studio work, I became too accustomed to the camera doing the work for me. I became used to painting from static photos and sketches. I became used to the workability of oil paint and the flexibility of drying time it gives me. Stepping back outside, my confidence suddenly felt shaky as I struggled to find my way with gouache again. I overworked it, muddied the color, was hesitant with my brushstrokes, sabatoged my compositions and completely lost my way.
After years of doing this, I know that sometimes it is necessary to get the ugly and the awkward paintings out of my system in order to return to a feeling of being in touch with what I am doing. Just as life isn’t smooth sailing, neither is painting. I think, it is a frame of mind problem with me. I have a tendency to be in either a studio mode or in outside mode. To do both at the same time takes flexibility and repetition, sort of like exercise. It is a struggle at first but the more I do it the easier it gets.
I am feeling, oh-so-rusty, but I will persevere through the ugly. I am determined to paint outside everyday, until I get through this. Each day I see a little improvement, sometimes it is just a brushstroke or a better composition but it is a glimmer of light, a break in my clouds, and it gives me hope. To be honest, I am glad that I am down to the last few pages of this sketchbook, and hoping that once I reach the end, I will close the book on the uglies. Fingers crossed on that one.
A sketchbook is a visual diary, it should show the process of working through the rough and ugly spots in painting, as well as the flow of the easy and beautiful moments. There are always lessons to be learned, even if it takes learning them over and over again.
“We all start from where we are and develop in skill from that place. (It is a never-ending process. None of us ever reach the destination.) A lack of polished technique is not something to be ashamed of; raw ore is never shameful. Sometimes, often, there is a greater beauty in raw ore than in the most polished work.”
- Stephen Harris Buhner
Dottie! Thank you for sharing these raw moments of doubt and discouragement. It does make me feel better to know wonderful painters like you experience these moments too.
Thank you for that! I know exactly the feeling of being awkwardly 'out-of-painting shape'. I just didn't expect anyone else as prolific and deeply talented as you are to experience it lol!