The Six Stages of Creating a Painting
Over the past few years I’ve come to realise that my painting process follows a familiar pattern, and I can’t decide whether realising its predictability is reassuring or disturbing.
Whichever way, this is inevitably what happens:
Usually while outside walking, I get wildly excited about an idea for a new painting. Back in my studio I approach a new canvas with great gusto and enthusiasm thinking “this is going to be brilliant!”.
After a while (sometimes hours, occasionally days) the enthusiasm wanes, I hit a block and start to think “oh, in fact this is shit, I’ve ruined it!”
I start thinking “not only is the painting shit, my whole art career is shit! I should re-train, do something completely different instead!”
I calm down, step back from the painting to reevaluate, and remind myself that I always go through stages 2 and 3, and somehow it always works out anyway.
I come back to the painting, look for the bits I really like, fix the bits I don’t.
I realise “actually, this painting is in fact really good!”
It’s exhausting being on this emotional rollercoaster, but apparently very much par for the course with creatives. Is it because we have a loud inner critic? A questioning mind, intrusive thoughts or are just prone to being a bit overly dramatic?
Either way, it’s got me thinking about confidence, competence and self-evaluation.
It’s part of an artist’s role to interrogate and interpret the world around us. Our perceptions and interpretations find their way onto canvas (or paper, or whatever) as an answer to the un-asked questions of “how do I see this?” and “what does this mean to me?”.
If the answers were obvious, or easy, artwork would be simplified, straightforward and boring. It’s the angst, the questioning, the frustration that pours out of an artist that makes the art worthwhile.
While I wish I could just leapfrog over stages two and three, I know that I’m just not the type of person to believe that everything that flows from my brush is exactly perfect. It’s a messy work in progress. A bit like me.
