ground fog by marsh in winter
Not loving it. But something has kept me from painting over it.
Sometimes when I am creating, I go too far, keep poking it, keep messing with it, and end up messing it up and losing whatever was special. In painting, I often wish I had stopped a few layers earlier, back when it felt more open. Or I regret moving from the truly abstracted to the semi-representational. That is nearly always the kiss of death since I have no skill at rendering. In this painting, I screwed up the trees, I knew what I was after, missed, and was unable to lift the paint back off and begin again.
In writing, I had a long piece that I rearranged after a workshop by an editor. She spoke of the importance of jumping into plot, and I panicked. By re-aranging, I totally screwed up the organic, slow, unfolding pace that was central to the piece. It will never be a nail biter, but it wasn’t meant for that or that audience. And now I know I have to unscrew it before I can move forward.
Interesting to think about other things that might benefit by going back a few paces… and consciously raise sensitivity to being more aware when things maybe should be left alone for a bit even if they are not quite done…
Nothing worse, for me, than wishing I could take that last ____ back. Undo only goes so far, and regret simply sucks.
I like the painting. It’s very ethereal; it suggests rather than proclaims.