Sometimes a painting is so awful it’s beyond repair.
I spent the morning studying a phone; an old-type phone, pink, pretty- interesting. I studied, sketched, re-sketched painted and repainted. Detail, highlight, shadow, shape; I was getting to know this phone and yet (ugh) – everything went to pieces (torn to shreds) and into the garbage.
I know this trap, I fall in often.
Confined by ideals of ‘good art’ (everyone has their own version of what ‘good art’ is), I lose track of what I’m looking to express and end up with a rigid, stagnant, expressionless variation of a subject that is worthy of so much more.
But I shook it off today (ripped up the vile painting) and started again.
And I’m not surprised with the final version of this painting (this subject I studied so carefully).
It is a simple, clear, expressive version of the phone, a representation of my feeling when I see this object; fun, funny, interesting and (yes-) pink.
