When All Else Fails…

…just paint what you like.

That's what I have been telling myself lately as I lose ground in the battle against my painting block. And it has seemingly worked. At least I have painted a couple of paintings this week.

The first painting was of Mitzi, a fictional subject based on a found photo. I loved painting this one. Once again, there was a point within its creation where it started to come to life and I was so focused, so involved, so engrossed that I actually missed a meal! I have already posted her to my portraits website, but I'll share her with you now as some may not have the exact address of that site. So here she is!


And so today I painted another dog painting. I had started this one day last week, but paying work delayed my finishing it. So today I continued with it. This one is not quite finished yet. In actuality, it is painted on a 20" x 24" canvas, but I have cropped it because the rest of it isn't finished yet. And now that I see it cropped, I rather like it and may not do the extra bits I had planned for top and bottom. We'll see. But again, this was a delight to paint and also again, I was so focused I missed another meal. Here it is:


I realize that this is not high art, but at least I am painting. Not only am I painting, but I am truly enjoying it, something I haven't felt in a while. Especially while working on paintings for the publishing house. But I'll have to get back to that this week.

Back to the Sketchbook

And so one thing I started to do about my painter’s block is to take the pressure off a bit.

Not this past Sunday, but the Sunday before, I sketched. This was a day when I would normally expect myself to paint all day. Instead, I told myself that I could have the “day off”. To do whatever I would like. Yes, I played on my computer, looking at website designs and art. And then I felt the “stirring”. But rather than paint, I worked in the sketchbook and just let myself be okay with that. I sketched something from a printed promo piece, I re-sketched something I pulled out of my sketchbook from three years ago, I sketched ideas that were just inside my head inspired from an illustrator’s website and a photographer’s site I had passed by during the day.


Not great stuff, but I had fun and it made me feel like an artist, something that had been eluding me since I was not in the studio much.

Inspiring Myself

I get inspiration from lots of different places. It may come from a piece created by another artist, something I see while driving my car, in an office building, or otherwise during my daily travels. But sometimes (and I am always thrilled by this) it may come from something I created myself.

On Tuesday I was working in my sketchbook and a painting I had created a couple of days prior just happened to be lying next to me. As I looked at it, I noticed a section where the paint sort of made a figure. It was completely unintentional, and I had not noticed it during the painting of the piece. But there it was, looking to me like a figure stretching or reaching up for something. Reaching for the stars perhaps? Sappy I know, but also hopeful, anticipating, even elated. A simple extension of my state of mind at that moment.


I must interject here that Tuesday was a particularly spectacular day with regard to my mood. Everything seemed to be going my way, I received several phone calls and emails from people wanting to commission paintings, or at the very least, inquiring about pricing and availability. I landed a couple of interviews for contract design work. And I was finishing up a paying project, so my fears of starvation were held at bay, at least for the time being. I was in fact, happy.

So back to the mysterious figure in my work. First I tried to draw it without looking at the painting. It didn’t look right. I looked at the painting and realized that was because my memory cannot be entirely relied upon, I often draw what I think something should look like rather than what it actually does look like. So for the rest of the sketch I let myself look at the thing. And I came up with the weird little figure in the sketch.

So I took it further to a painted sketch. I had a small canvas prepared that would accommodate my vision of the composition. It didn't turn out as I imagined it, and I will probably paint over this first chance I get, but one thing I do like, (and I have to admit, I had fun painting it in this way) is the return to what I have come to call my "reverse transfer" process, a technique I have not used in years. But it adds a nice textual quality without altering the actual surface of the substrate. Look for more of this in upcoming works.