Constructive Self Talk

Yesterday was a day to work around the house on fall chores, rather than do paying work.  I started the day with a quick painting. The rest of the day involved raking, cleaning up the garage, and other fun things like that.

When I was drawing the leaf, my mind was in "the zone". It just happens some times.  What I noticed as I was drawing was that the running commentary in my brain was constructive. My unconscious thoughts were things like "is that the angle of that line or is that line about the right length?". I wasn't even seeing a leaf in front of me.  I was seeing shapes that needed to be captured.  Boy, I wish that happened all of the time or at least more than it does. Currently, it's about once per week and it always feels as though I'm getting out of the way of myself. I'm not fighting myself. I'm just doing. Hearing the useful self-commentary was a new experience.

Here is the leaf. The picture is not at the same exact angle.

Here is the drawing, pre-shadows.

When it came time to paint, I decided to use alternative colors. I still ended up with a lot of layers of paint. It's a problem. I can start with a good paint stroke, but it's too translucent. Frequently when I go over it to get a opaque color, I lose the goodness of the original paint stroke.  Also, don't get me started on the background color. Blech! On the plus side when something did not work or I reached a decision point and wasn't sure that to do, I stopped, got up from my chair, walked around, and came back. It made me feel more in control (which of course, I am) and not so frantic.

I've been experimenting a bit more and that is a good thing. When I fed the cats their evening meal last night, I was reading Carol Marine's book "Daily Painting". She said "If you want to be good at anything,  you've got to put in the time.......You've either got to do five hundred paintings, or put in ten thousand hours before you start doing work you can be really proud of". I find this comforting, although I don't totally agree with the thought about pride.  I think that she is talking about pride coming from attaining a certain level of mastery. Even though a lot of what I do does not work and I may not like the result, frequently, I step back and feel great pride in what I am accomplishing right now.