Common Mistakes with Painting

Today I'm going to talk a little about common mistakes while painting. These aren't some top five I found in some article or anything, but are ones that I find myself on the wrong end of. Maybe you do some of these too. Who knows? Let's find out together shall we?

1. Impatience

This one is pretty obvious. When you get impatient about wanting something to be finished then you don't produce your best work. You end up pushing the paint around instead of actually finishing, and that my friend leads to mistakes.

2. No Clear Vision

Now this one isn't always a bad thing. Some of my neatest paintings have come from just rolling up my sleeves and diving in without any idea of what I want. However this way of working can easily backfire, and you end up with more of a mess than anything else. 

It's especially dangerous if you have an idea of what you want to do, but no idea how you want to go about doing it. I had this problem recently. I wanted to do one particular type of landscape, but dove in first without an idea of how to proceed. It was only after I'd started that I looked at reference pictures and as a result had to redo some of my work. It was a downward spiral from there, and I ended up scraping the project instead of wasting more paint on something I couldn't save.

3. Over Correcting

This one I know is common among most artists. It's when you see something you don't like, and so you correct it. Only then you see another thing. And another. And another. Soon your painting has changed so much you no longer like it. You can also correct so much that in your correcting you make a blunder.

I did the latter of the scenarios once while doing an intuitive painting. It was really gorgeous, but had a couple of white spots. In trying to correct the white spots I completely messed up the flow of the painting to the point where it couldn't be salvaged.

4. Not Letting Things Be

There comes a point in painting where you need to walk away. It could be you've spent too much time looking at the darn thing and you're starting to go cross-eyed, it could be you don't know where to go from where you are and are feeling hopeless, or perhaps it feels like it might be finished, but you aren't sure.

When you become unsure it's best to take a breather and walk away. Sometimes that's all you need. Sometimes you need more time. What you're hoping to achieve is a different state of mind. A fresh outlook. If you don't do this and just stare at the canvas you won't get anything done, or worse you make a mistake that messes it up. The same thing is the case for something that's finished, but you're unsure about it. If you don't sit on it you can end up having to redo the whole thing.

5. Not Trusting Yourself

This is a big one. Ultimately, with anything in life, you must trust yourself. If you aren't able to listen to that part of you that tells you it's enough, to do something this way instead of another, or to not put the paintbrush in your mouth then you end up with a lot of problems. You must have confidence, at least a little, or you'll never get anything done. What's more, when you have finished you'll be easily swayed by the comments and criticisms of others.

So these are my top five issues I have while painting. They don't always come out, but when they do it's super annoying! However, if I just chill a bit, relax, breathe, and then re-access the situation usually I can get through whatever the problem is. So if any of you suffer from these issues make sure you try to do the same.

I wish you luck in all of your creative endeavors.

^-^

Painting Trees

I have just finished another painting. 

Ta da! Isn't it lovely? Sorry about the picture quality. My light is the absolute worst. It has a yellow-green hue which drastically yellows anything I take a picture of, and adds just a tint of green to make things look a little sickly. It's annoying, but I can't go in search of better light at this hour as everyone is sleeping, which I should be doing too, but... I'm not. I'm posting this. Because I can.

It's title is Dalmatian Trees because as I worked I noticed that the trees reminded me of that dog breed. I tried seeing if other names would fit once I was done, but nothing that came to mind felt right. So... Dalmatian Trees. 

I used the biggest of my home-stretched canvases, and was worried since it was a bigger canvas (14 x 20) that I would have a difficult time completing this project. Thankfully, I worried for nothing, and am happy with the way it turned out.

Though hopefully someday in the future I can obtain a camera that takes better pictures. I have a very nice camera, but unfortunately its shake function is very sensitive and I don't have stable enough hands for it. I have to take several pictures if I want a semi decent one. *sigh* Anyway, now I can read some more! I wasn't allowed to finish the book I'm reading until I painted (self imposed restriction), but now I am done and I can read it! w00t! I can also eat something as I am very hungry. So I'll go do that now. t00dles!

Being Productive!

Today I did two major things that I've been holding off on. Yay productivity! The first was repainting a painting that was painted over a piece of art that I bought for my older sister many eons ago. It goes like this, some time ago my older sister said she wanted to paint over 2 of her run of the mill from Walmart pieces of art. They were nice in their prime, but now were chipped, and didn't really click with her style anymore so I understood why she wanted to do this. Me being the painter in the family she asked if I would tote my stuff over to her place, and there she and I would repaint the pieces of art. As payment for my materials she'd let me keep the one I did.

However, I wasn't exactly thrilled with what I'd made in the end. It was cool enough, and people really liked it, but I wasn't happy with it. So about a week later I tried to do something else with it and painted over it. Things... didn't go well. So I re-primed the sucker and left it alone. Until today. Today I decided to work on it. I also decided that I'd make a painting where I didn't have as much control over the end result as I usually do. It was fun and I really like the end result. I did not, however, enjoy having to scrub the excess paint off the cement (as I decided to paint outside).

The second thing I did was finish sanding my end table. Let's step back a few months to explain the end table. A neighbor of ours two doors over was moving out and was getting rid of an end table. They had set it out to the curb a few hours earlier, and when my family and I were walking our dog we saw it. My mom and sister didn't really give it a second glance but I wanted it. So after asking the neighbors about it (just to make sure they were really getting rid of it and not selling it or something) my little sister and I brought it into our garage.

Once I told my big sis about it and said that I wanted to re-stain it she got all excited and helped my obtain the materials I needed to do the job. Well today I finally finished sanding the beast. At least the initial sanding. I'm not sure if more is needed or not. I'm waiting for my sister to get here so I can ask her what my next step is. Regardless I'm happy with the amount of progress I've made.

No pictures of either project yet (getting out my bulky camera is a pain and I'm being lazy right now) so instead I've leave you with this octopus.