painter's block

"pathway back #5" 9"x12"pastel on Uart 500  $80

Every so often, I go through these periods when I'm "stuck " with my painting….painter's block, whatever! It's so frustrating to me because I want to paint everyday. I just have not been connecting with anything….When this happens I sit back and just try to relax and usually spend time going through my pile of "inspirations" - copies of artist's work that I love. I also go through my photos and pull anything that even slightly shows interest to me and do some simple black pen drawings.

reference photos and black pen drawings

I hate to waste a good piece of Uart paper. I had tried several watercolor under paintings and actually got started laying in the pastel - but I just wasn't liking it. So I put the paper in the sink and washed off as much of the underpainting/pastel with water, then blocked and let the paper dry. Back to the drawing board! One reference photo/drawing had some potential. I used that blocked paper and did another watercolor underpainting, you can still see the shadow of the previous underpainting.

reference photo/blk pen drawing

new watercolor underpainting

I sort of had an image in my head of what I wanted to paint. Determined not to give up, I said to myself 

"relax and paint what I feel". Another pathway back…..