Epiphany

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I had a sudden epiphany the other day. If you find yourself doing as an adult what you used to do as a child - without being forced, or for a career, or any other reason or for any other person - it brings tremendous joy. Because as a child, you made uninhibited choices for pure pleasure, and you could get lost in that activity. I am now doing watercolors, and I like entering competitions to see how good I am compared to everyone else. As a child, I did watercolors with a child's paintbox and I also did a lot of other crafts on my own, borrowing books constantly from the library to learn/try/make different things [frequently borrowing books is another childhood habit that is very present now] and I used to enter artsy and writing competitions all the time. The thrill of waiting for the result gave me a bigger high than winning. Winning was a temporary good feeling but it never lasted as long as I would have expected. (I think that was because my work was never PERFECT. I always saw the flaws because I had experienced them in the process, and couldn't look at the final product objectively as a whole, without its muddled history.) I was on the lookout for the next contest ... and the delicious wait to know the result. Now, I am painting and like to enter shows and competitions - whether or not I make it is less relevant than my own feeling that this piece is good enough to enter, and the ever-present niggling feeling that it is perhaps not perfect.

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.
Leonardo da Vinci

Here is my Iain-Stewart style layered painting of Fortune Cookie Alley in Chinatown, San Francisco. I took the photo last Monday in Chinatown, San Francisco, as we were headed to the famous fortune cookie factory down a tiny alley. It's amazing how a drab little photo with bad lighting can generate so many different versions. I did a value study, a color painting [without much thought to the palette - shows!] and this monochromatic, build-upon-layers skinny painting. I am pleased with this. And I am super excited to be doing a workshop with him this week [minus all the travel/accommodation expenses!].

               
                         Look what a difference a few extra lanterns makes in the right painting.


                            
                                                             2.13.2019


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