I Lost it on Tuesday

"Gnarly but Nice"
It is so exhilirating to paint in an intuitive manner, at least for me. I know one thing for sure with each canvas..."this will be a challenge." It helps to have painted for a while. One of my favorite artists, would tell his students that to be a good painter you had to paint for miles and miles. I think it was a famous quote. I would have a great painting coming along and he would say, "now go home and start 10 more like it". I tell my students that they must paint a lot of paintings before they learn how to develop as artists. You learn something new with each painting. The next one forces you to recall the lessons of the previous. It's sort of like that muscle memory you learn about when you play a sport. Practice, practice, practice.

I don't pre-plan my large paintings. I work on them a while and eventually they ha, ha..."speak to me." Tuesday, I saw this wonderful alligator. He was slithering around on my canvas, part of his head, two eyes, one front leg...I know he was there. It was a colorful abstract canvas with texture and all those alligator parts. The next step is to "capture" the subject. I work out the composition with chalk or paint and try not to lose the little surprises I find so appealing. I have learned that not all paintings proceed in a orderly manner. I have to be willing to change directions or let alligators go. I lost my alligator Tuesday, he just refused to cooperate. All the work of the day was lost.
So today, I start again to capture that magic...just to relax and paint big shapes, color, line. Tomorrow the search begins...

"Swamp Thing"
a previous alligator that didn't get away