Caught your attention didn’t I? Artistic Advancements. What marvel of artistic achievement could I possibly be speaking of? Did I paint a masterpiece just waiting for the call from the Getty? Not so much, although as I said last night, I always do what I say, so I did work on Jessica’s portrait. I am really pleased with my progress. I am finally losing the flatness that has plagued my work in the past. I have also learned at last to just step back. Even now as I write this I want to be back in the other room fixing all the issues I see. I am an impatient artist, I want the painting where I want it to be as quickly as possible. Art doesn’t work that way, at least oil painting. That led to many, many muddy messes. That of course led to frustration and the inevitable resignation, and the declaration of “you aren’t good enough”.  I feel like I’m learning to let the work speak to me, knowing when to put the brush down, put the painting to the side, and return when its had time to dry a little. That is where I am at with Jessica’s face. I worked on it for a couple of hours this afternoon. I made very few changes, only following a few suggestions made by my “in-house” art critic, Dan. Yes, there are a couple of areas I’d like to work on, but I’m happy to wait until the painting is ready for me.

Dying of curiosity yet? Several blogs ago I referred to my extremely bad habit of painting where ever, wearing what ever, ruining many pieces of clothing in the process, not to mention a piece of furniture or two. There is also the olive-green carpet that was christened with a squirt of hot pink acrylic. My huge artistic advancement? When I decided it was time to paint today I was wearing a white t-shirt and a beautiful blue and white floral skirt. I set up my paints, my easel, and was about to pick up my brush when I stopped myself. I thought, “What are you doing?” I went upstairs and put on an old t-shirt, a pair of jeans (the victim of a previous paint), and went back down to go to work. When I mentioned to Dan that I felt like I’d made an advancement in my art, he took one look at me and laughed, he knew exactly what was different. Maybe not the most exciting news that you’ve heard today, but for my husband probably the best news he’s had in a while.

Jessica in progress. I’ve posted a “before” and “after”. You may notice a change in hair length. I took the photograph I’m working from a few years ago, Jessica has since grown her hair longer and I think it looks beautiful, so long hair it is.