Tuesday, August 28, 2012

I'm Feelin' It!

Stage two... 
oil going on over-top of the acrylic wash/underpainting

Both of the kids had play-dates this afternoon, so I was able to get to the studio for a couple of hours. I tweaked a few small paintings and then bit the bullet and began working on this one again. I have been thinking about it non-stop and how I was going to tackle it. Which makes me think of a conversation I had with a friend up at the Kenderdine Campus. We were talking about how people like to ask an artist how long it takes to paint a painting, likely because they are trying to determine how much the artist's hourly rate is! What my friend had said was that the answer is really 10, 20, 40 years or however long you have been studying and working at your art. I love that! You see, although I have only got about 5 hours of painting time into this piece (with many more to go), I began "painting it" the day I took the photo. It has been imagined in my mind already for uncountable hours. I have studied my paints to figure out what colours I would mix to get the effects I want. I have laboured over the composition. And now I am just scratching the surface with marks and dashes of paint. I hope it turns out... I am hoping I will be invited to submit paintings to an art auction again this year and I'd love this to be a show stopper... but if it doesn't I will undoubtedly have learned valuable lessons that will go on to inform my next paintings. And the time spent will go into the stockpile of hours that back each and every piece of art I continue to create.

I'm so excited about this one that I hope to burn the midnight oil at the studio tonight when I get through with a meeting. Fingers crossed that the feelin' is still there! 

2 comments:

Barbara Muir said...

So far, so amazing. I like how Alyson Stanfield explains that collectors are not usually painters themselves. So they ask these questions from their perspective out of total curiosity. This explanation of yours is a good one, because it takes so many things into consideration. People usually ask that question because they feel a sense of wonder looking at the work.

Love the painting, and your post.

XO Barbara

Nicki said...

Hi Barbara,

Yes, it is likely true that people ask because in some ways it is a natural question of curiosity and they feel that sense of wonder. In this case when talking with my friend, he said the person freaked out because the supposed "per hour" value was really high, but it was one of those pieces that just flowed out and never could have without years of training and practice and failures.

I'm excited about the shape this piece is taking. I hope it works!

Hugs and hope you are feeling better.

Nicki