The Finish Line

After what seems like interminable perseverating (I will have to consider whether this phrase is hopelessly redundant later...) I am at last ready to declare this portrait completed.

Although I am not always plagued with this difficulty, I often do have trouble recognizing when I have finished a painting. As with this effort, I end up repainting parts over and over again... Often when I get in that spot, it feels as though I am in a thicket surrounded by shrubbery taller than me... and I can't see my way out. (A pretty obvious forest-for-the-trees analogy). I know that the right thing to do then is to step away - physically, step back... and even move away in the space of time. Simply put the painting away and not look at it for a while... I know that is the right thing to do... so why, all to often, do I not do it, at least not before the weight of frustration has all but crushed me?

I understand I am not alone in this struggle... apparently Pierre Bonnard was famous for reworking his paintings both in the studio and after delivery, including once having his friend Vuillard distract a guard in the Louvre so he could add a few brush strokes to a hanging painting of his! I promise that if I get in the Louvre, I will not try to guild the lily!

With this painting, I believe my stumbling block was the fact that I had no model, no image to work from. Oh, I had a reference photo- but one with significant challenges to overcome (e.g., flash that flattened the faces). I was painting not to try to represent something I was seeing, but to compensate for it.

So what lesson have I learned from this painting - fraught with too much struggle and no clear end in sight? I learned what every teacher I ever worked with had urged: I should have made a complete drawing (not just a couple of sketches). In this case, possibly even a full color painting to work through the problems... then I could have painted from THAT as a reference I could rely on.

You can bet I will not tackle another such challenge - working from imperfect photography - without drawing on this valuable lesson truly (and at long last) learned!