"A Time Before Man"

6 x 9"

Oil on canvas board

(sold)

I've started a couple of paintings over the past week and ended up abandoning them for one reason or another. It's just how it goes sometimes and I know I should be more accepting of these false starts and not beat myself up too much. But I always do. I know most other artists have good days and bad days (or good weeks and bad weeks) and that there is valuable learning and progress made from paintings that aren't working out or finishing up how you want them to. Time spent on these isn't wasted time - far from it - but it takes some effort to persuade myself of this. Spending all day or all evening on a painting only to wipe it out or throw it away just kills me every time.

Suffice to say, my past couple of painting sessions have been like this. I like to keep the blog warm so I dug something out that I painted a couple of years ago. This was one of my first efforts using oils, having painted mostly with acrylics up to this point. I am quite fond of this little piece. It was a work of pure imagination, except for the tiger-like creature in the foreground for which I used a bit of reference material. My idea was to depict a scene from a sort of prehistoric or other world, a place where mankind had no dominion and the land was completely wild and unspoilt. If I remember right I was looking at a lot of work by the great Frank Frazetta at this time as well, so there was probably some influence from his work on the choice of subject. I was very pleased with the colours and the composition, and the almost abstract feel to the whole thing. It really felt like pure painting.

Hopefully I'll regain my stride and be back to the recent stuff with the next post. If I was to break down the stages of any painting I do it would be this: Inspiration = Motivation = Application. For me, the first two have always been essential and sometimes I need a complete break away from painting for a few days in order to rejuvinate them. I wonder what ways other artists deal with these blips?