Progress takes time (layer by layer by layer)

There is a point in each drawing and each painting where it is no longer fun. I am looking, looking, erasing, fussing, and stressing. I want to be so much farther along than I am and get everything right the first time, but with watercolor painting and with life it is added to and improved layer by layer. 

For each painting you see there are hours and hours of hard work and frustration. This is an opportunity of a lifetime and I am not wasting it. I have rarely pushed myself this hard in anything that I have wanted to learn. 

When I feel I have reached my limits, I have teachers and mentors who either know to have me go off and do something else, or push me past them. I am so thankful. And my brain is so tired! 

I don't know how many times I will have to learn that life is a journey. I can't figure it all out now, I cannot wake up and be Van Gough, Da Vinci, Matisse. 

Guess what? I'm human. Gah. It's a good thing. 

I am having to continually readjust my perspective and view each painting or drawing as a learning experience and not the end all of my achievements and worth. I am figuring out that I have the artist's temperament in full measure!!!

The paintings I have been doing are on larger sheets of paper so to really see them as they should be I have to get some distance from them. They should be veiwed from at least a few feet away. But when I am so close to it, trying to work in too many details, I get discouraged and want to give up. I have to literally look at the big picture. 

If I step back and see where I started in July and where I am now, the progress is incredible. 

I just need to take each day at a time, be faithful with what I have now, and the progress will come. 

Each days challenges are preparation for whatever the future holds. Artistically and spiritually. 

                                   

                                   

                                  

                            

                                 

Just an example of the progression and some of the many layers that go into a painting. 

I'm working on a painting of Mont Saint Micheal right now, so we'll see how that turns out. :/ It has been quite the challenge. 

More to come soon! 

Xx 

Katina