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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Failure to plan ahea

d. OK. Guilty as charged. While I preach, preach, preach to painting students to draw and plan ahead of time, I sometimes forge ahead with little to go on other than my desire. Whoa. My typical shortcoming is drawing too large. My subject matter seems to grow with each stroke. I can't tell you how many feet and heads I have cut off. Sometimes the result is charming. Mostly not. I have learned to compensate by drawing a box inside of the canvas edges which I pretend to make into my real boundaries. When I forego this important step, the result is disaster. My husband, the counselor, says that test results on children reveal this to be a lack of impulse control. Again, guilty as charged. All of the details in my life revolve around more time to paint. When I am finally planted in front of the easel, my excitement is boundless........and I throw caution to the wind. Yesterday's session ended up in a complete wipeover. Three days of painting lost.....along with sheets and sheets of paper toweling and beaucoup de paint. While I tried the bandaging the painting with color upon color, I realized that no magic color could cover up the bloated drawing underneath. What a horrible feeling. I wiped out.