It’s been one of those weeks at the easel where everything I’ve painted has felt like quite a struggle!
This is half-sheet of a Parisien street scene is probably the best of my efforts. Even though it has some okay touches to it, it was still excessively heavy going!
In fact, this week was the first time in a long time that I’ve just given up on a painting. I suppose it’s a mark of how far I’ve come that this is something I rarely do now. I usually stick with a painting and am confident enough about my abilities to get at least get something rewarding from it!
On this occasion, however, I just couldn’t face it! Do you ever have weeks or periods of time like that!?
I’m no stranger to these ‘difficult’ periods so it’s not something I’m going to get too worked up about. I think it’s all part of the creative process and creative development. I think you need to have the lows to really appreciate the highs!
Often, in these circumstances, painting something different, or focussing on smaller sketchbook studies, or finding a new subject that I just can’t wait to get stuck into helps to shake things up a bit.
I’m not sure which of these scenarios will help me out of this current hole, but hopefully one of them will come up trumps for me and I’ll be experiencing the highs again soon!
2 thoughts on “It’s been a tough week at the watercolour easel”
And it’s not just us painters!
“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would stand and look over the roofs of Paris and think, do not worry, you have already written before, and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. So finally, I would write one true sentence and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that you knew or had seen or had heard someone say.”
E. Hemingway
Best wishes to all of us who are chasing the creative life…or come to think of it…best wishes to all of us no matter what life we pursue 🙂
Thanks so much for this Leslie and what a great quote! I can’t help but wonder what the watercolour painting equivalent is of ‘one true sentence’! In the meantime, totally echo your best wishes to all of us no matter what life we pursue!