So– I think it only took 4-5 months all told, but I finally finished this painting. Lot of thoughts. I already did a post about what this painting is about: hint, it’s not really all that empty. Since I already posted about, I’ll explain the thought process coming back to this painting.

Recently I was doing a mural with Bernie, who’s a fantastic muralist, and he seemed pretty cavalier about mistakes. Things would rip or a line would go off and he would just have us keep going…we’d fix it later or just incorporate the mistake in.

Unfortunately, I’m not really like that. Despite the sloppiness of my style, I guess I’m weirdly obsessive about things looking the way I want them to. I think part of it’s insecurity- like, every time I have to prove I’m legitimate. Also, it’s probably that I’m ambitious to make a really, really powerful painting. I want my paintings to reach their internal potential- which costs me the number of paintings that I could make instead of deep diving on these huge projects.

Honestly, it killed me to make those towers. I’d just started grocery store knight and was getting some momentum on other little paintings. I also wasn’t sure if I could make the towers match the central part. How detailed would they need to be? How would they physically attach?

(In the end, those towers took like….twenty additional hours of work.)

I got this done through straight grinding. Honestly, it’s been a little hard to paint with all the other transitions in my life. I still have the time, but part of me is always thinking I should be doing something else- like painting the house or something. Also, my art space is in an increasingly cold garage in my new house. TV often wins when you can do it in your warm, warm living room instead of hanging out in your cold, dark garage.

But- thankfully, I’m really happy and proud of this final product. Really means something to me. A lot of ideas about where I go next- but, for this week, I’m excited that this is done just in time to get to my guild’s art show to see if it (fingers crossed) gets accepted by the juror.

Wish me luck.