OK now...
This is going to be a very humbling experience.
On the verge of humiliating.
Last week turned out to be very busy and hectic, with Christmas evening and day, and The JohnnyB on vacation (which did not contribute for my painting mood, as painting is a solitary thing, y'see), and then him getting sick, plus the frantic application for a CARICOM visa for me, and then the plague that took both our computers away, and me getting the cold from the JohnnyB in between - - - and you expect me to paint?!?
OK, OK, you're right.
I made a commitment, yeah, yeah...
OK - I said OK!.
Steady on now.
So, against all odds, I started a painting last night.
I was quite pissed and stressed, and very rushed - the worst time to paint.
Actually, it can be a very good idea to paint when you are in such a low mood - nothing beats art therapy, but only if you paint what you want and feel, and not what you should be painting.
And I, as we all recall, need to paint them damn pomegranates.
Still: I started - which is the hardest step.
Painted for a while, and crushed to bed.
But today, waking up sick and stuffy, with a splitting headache, pissed that we are going to miss the New Year's party we were invited to, I could not bring myself to continue - not to mention finish - the painting.
And yet, my pact says I post a fresh produce from the easel, no cheating.
So, here is all I got for you right now: the very beginning of the first version of pomegranate painting.
This is the initial under-drawing I made, based on the composition of the drawing I posted last week. Not too bad.
The only catch is that I drew this with watercolor crayons, which have the neat attribute of dissolving in water.
It's a trick we learned from WackieM.
The good thing is that - as opposed to a pencil drawing - they do not leave graphite marks (which sometimes interfere with the painting).
The bad thing: they dissolve in water...
I know, like, Duh?
Wait!
My point is that if you do not draw strong enough, you pretty much lose a lot of the drawing, and end up tearing your hair and screaming in dismay while throwing things around, getting an even worse headache and becoming an overall very unpleasant and non-environment-friendly person, scaring the hell out of The JohnnyB, who sometimes forgets that artists have tortured souls.
Especially when their drawing dissolves away!
It's easy to see this is a classic example of such an occasion:
Once I did the first wash, only fragments of the drawing were left here and there.
Yep, I never learn.
Anyhow, let me repeat the disclaimer:
This is an unfinished painting.
It's only the very beginning.
The initial stage of blocking-in the major shapes with underlying color washes.
There are some areas that I actually like about it (and hopefully will not screw them up, as I tend to do in my eternal self-destructive talent), and others that are truly horrendous, and would be fun to cover with the next washes.
So, now it's up to what I do with it once I get the energy to continue.
Once I manage to reproduce the lost drawing, that is...
Most important: yet again, I did not break my pact!!!
Which brings up another resolution for the coming year:
To never, ever again, reach the point that all I have to post is a shameful thing such as this.
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