All Things Considered

All Things Considered

28 x 22"

oil on canvas
© Nicki Ault, 2011  

You've heard me talk about my love/hate painting... well, this is it. It has been through quite the range of changes. It started out as a plain air painting, but by the end there was a whole lot more time spent in the studio than spent outdoors. If I knew at the beginning how much it was going to change I would have taken more photos along the way. The final change happened two days before the Open Studio when I found myself in about the third hate cycle of it's creation. (These were interspersed with about the same number of love stages as well as some indifferent stages). Here is what the painting looked like before the final change that you see above...

After getting feedback from Miranda (another artist in the studio) it was decided that the sky was not working with the rest of the painting. I was frustrated and feeling completely "over" it, yet I was still not prepared to cash in my chips. After a little self-imposed timeout I regrouped, grabbed my brushes, turned up the music and said, "What if..." (...well that's the polite version). Basically I didn't like it anyway so what if I churned up the sky with some stormy purples and blues, what if I left the brush marks looking rough and energetic, what if I made larger areas of colour in the foreground? 

All things considered, I am really happy with the end result. The emotional roller-coaster that was the making of this painting left me a little wobbly and weak-kneed, but valuable lessons were learned. Perhaps most importantly I finally remembered to ask myself one of the best questions to spur on creative work...

"What if...?"