Where have I been this past week? Right here, at home, visiting with Resistance. Yeah, it hit me again, that lousy Resistance, with a capital R. Sometimes things go a little off track and lands me smack in the blahs of creativity. Meaning no creativity. Meaning resistance mode.
What’s an artist to do? Well, first I decided to lay off bugging and nagging my inner artist. I gave in to resistance and took a nap. Maybe it was well deserved. Feeling off is not going to help anything, but dropping out of it can. So I did. That’s all I could do on Day 1 visit with Resistance.
To back up a bit: I ran out of paper in the travel watercolor pad I was using. Bad move #1- I didn’t shop for another pad. I still have paper, but it’s larger. So, I decided to just use the larger paper for the next work. I set up a small still life of the usual items and added some interesting agate stones I have for my jewelry making. Maybe they were too interesting? Make that Bad move #2.
As I was free from babysitting one day this week, which is another story I will have to tell another day, I sat down to paint this set up. Remember, bigger paper. I began to sketch in the objects with paint, no pencil drawing. I had hoped to do twenty minutes. Bad move #3-20 minutes on big paper with interesting items that had detail, lots of detail.
How did it come out? Disaster. Knock-knock, Resistance at the door! Hi, how have you been? Come on in! It’s been such a long time!
The next day I took that nap. The day after that I pushed myself outside to take some photos of the Japanese maple tree with it’s bright red leaves. I wanted to post them, but Resistance wouldn’t let me saying we should have a coffee together. So I had coffee in my ‘dream corner’ of the living room and looked out the window at the back garden. Resistance told me to just leave that horrible painting on the dining room table where I started it. Sure, look at it every time I pass through to the kitchen, why not?
The following day I ran my errands and totally ignored the painting and anything to do with it.
Do you know how hard it is to fight the soothing call of Resistance? I must say I’ve been lucky these last few months. Keeping resistance at bay was a breeze. It was smooth sailing for a while, plugging into creativity, staying in the mode with 20 minutes at a time, happy with the process and feeling good about the outcome of it. Nice work. I guess a visit with Resistance was inevitable sooner or later.
What did I do after all that? I knit. After I knit, I am going to ditch that painting.
Gee, there must have been something in the air this week. One other person plus myself had the same problem. Yesterday I threw it out the window and sat down and painted all afternoon. Not the best for sure but it got me going again.
So I will try pushing your resistance out the door also.
Don’t ditch the painting! Cut it into 4 smaller pieces and paint on the other side!
That way it’ll be nearer to your pad size, too 🙂 xx
Teri something must be in the air alright. It’s strange whatever I do comes out all wrong this week. I think it’s the full moon.
Pat that’s exactly what I will do! Cutting the sheet will make me feel better too, like at least I’m salvaging something while ripping it up.