In Bloom

While I love that I chose a few years ago to explore painting as one of my creative outlets, the process of getting from an idea to a finished product is often a real struggle for me.

This particular struggle began a few months ago when I bought flowers for my dining room table and did the typical photo documenting for my file "Things I Might Want to Paint Someday".

It's not the best photo...taken in my kitchen with late afternoon sun coming in through the window and some haphazard white poster boards propped up for background and light reflection....

but, I kind of liked the balance of the composition.

This might have stayed in my file for months, maybe years if not for the prospectus that one of the local art centers distributed for an upcoming show titled

'In Bloom'.

Since I made the resolution that 2016 would be My Year,

I'm entering everything that I can to increase visibility of my paintings and jewelry.

I thought,

"Oh yeah...I'm definitely painting that somewhat OK photo of those dining room flowers."

As part of my ongoing commitment to austerity,

I recently bought a painting at one of the local thrift stores.

The painting was pretty dreadful, but the canvas was quite lovely.
I liked the somewhat unusual 18" x 18" size

and the perfect price of $3.00.

I started to block out my flowers directly on top of  the previous painting, appreciating the fact that some of the previous brush strokes would become part of my work.

With the general mass laid out,

I began to give more definition to shapes and colors.

The color palette was developed further as I considered shadows and depth.

At this point I asked for some advice and got a blistering critique.

Ouch!

Those inner voices that constantly tell me,

"You suck at this!"

felt smugly validated,

but I knew that I could learn from my areas of weakness.

Brights and darks were developed...

the jar grew to be more believable,

but what was I thinking with that purple blend in the background?

The unfortunate purple was toned down...

highlights were added to the foliage and to the jar.

Calling it done 

just in time to be delivered to Wayne Art Center later this week.