journey

One of the largest hurdles along the path of my journey is the crippling fear of making a mistake and then making the necessary changes to resolve a mistake made.

I expend a lot of effort -not- doing something as a result of the cost analysis conducted in my head … more often than not, I convince myself that the costs (e.g. financial, time-based, physical resources needed)  associated with something are too great to begin the task/project for fear that if I am not 110% satisfied with the outcome then I will have wasted those resources.

A perfect example of this is my desire to create art or paint as the case may be.  I have been in possession of 2 stretched canvases purchased from Hobby Lobby years ago.  Likewise, I have a complete ‘artist’s kit’ with watercolors, oils, and acrylics that Ma gifted me one year for Christmas many years ago.  While I am nite sure exactly when I acquired these items I do know that tit was prior to the summer of ’02 because they made the journey to/from Dallas in my move.  I have long resisted in painting anything with these resources for fear that I would waste the paint/canvas.

I approach everything very analytically and when I imagine myself painting, I cleverly convince myself that I must have a specific idea in mind down to  the necessary dimensions so that my brush does not have to pass a spot on the canvas more than once.  Anyone who has painted before I am sure would tell you that that thought is completely ludicrous, asinine, faulty, etc.

I actually discussed this crippling fear with a counselor a few years back and she encouraged me to face that fear as many times as necessary in hopes that I would eventually get beyond it.  She actually gave me an ‘assignment’ at one session and told me  to go home and paint something so that we could talk about the experience when I returned.  Needless to say, I didn’t even attempt it.

I provide that background as a means to lead up to the events of the past few days.  Last Wednesday (10/11) we made a trip to Homegrown Taproom for dinner.  Aside from the great food and excellent beer selection, my primary goal was to fill my growler with a great beer and sit and paint while becoming inebriated.  For me, consuming alcohol is a necessary prerequisite to engaging in any sort of activity that would require me to ‘loosen up’.  So the following evening, I poured myself a beer and we sat in the sunroom painting.

I approached the activity with the canvas in landscape with the idea that I would paint a rendering of the image that appears on this website since that image is a perfect reflection of my journey.  Needless to say, before the night was over I had rotated the canvas to portrait and began painting with an entirely different purpose – and that was okay …

The next day however, when I again looked at the painting (sober no less), I quickly began to analyze it and then began to ‘fix’ it … The whole process was really quite informative.   I had never painted with acrylics before and so was surprised to learn just how soluble they are in water (which is great considering that I don’t want to ‘waste’ any brushes with oils).  I had read on wiki-how that the canvas works better if is damp and so I also realized that I could mist the wet paint to get a great bleeding effect.  That bit of knowledge and experience came in handy on Saturday morning when I decided to mist the entire painting and then rub it down … once the canvas dried, I proceeded to paint it entirely black.

I spent the day going back and forth to the painting as I slowly began to develop it in to a piece with meaning and I have to admit, I am pleased.