Lots of Layers

This was the painting that I was struggling with last week. Even with Victoria's help, I just didn't feel good about it, so I added lots of other colors and covered most of it with red. I like it now.

Where is my muse?

This week has been a creative struggle. I was so pleased how the painting with the masked dancer turned out, I thought I could keep painting with that ease and spontaneity. I worked 3 days on another encaustic Hungarian dancer painting - a much bigger one, but it never clicked. Ignoring my tightening solar plexes, I kept telling myself, "I can fix this" After too many hours, countless layers of encaustic - it was really getting heavy, I looked at the painting after the third full day of struggle and said, "This is crap" and put it back in the stacks with the other failures.

I finished this one today, but the excitement is gone and I find it without passion.  I will take a break from the studio until my muse shows up again.


















Tomorrow is the life drawing session. At least, I can keep drawing. Here are some sketches that I have done. We start with 30 second drawings and end the 2 hours with 15 minutes sketches. I do enjoy this and the time flies.