Musings from the Easel

Not one piece of mine portrays this cliche as much as The Greeting Tree Study.  

When I began painting in 2004, I always thought that the end product was what I should be the most "in love" with as an artist.  As still an emerging artist, I'm finding that what I love the most is the journey that my painting produces, be it healing, energizing, calming, whatever, it's the process that has me enraptured; and my hopes is that my audience finds my pieces just as enrapturing as I do.  

The Gathering Tree is a painting about a 50+ year old Live Oak tree on the campus of the high school I teach at.  It's at this tree that the kids gather after school.  They walk by this tree every day going to class; and then back again as they return home or get in their cars to leave.  If this tree had ears, I'm sure it's heard many conversations, lamentations, and exultations from the students.  It's housed numerous squirrels, mockingbirds, cardinals, and cats; maybe the occasional whistling duck or hawk. 

And it's because of all of this activity surrounding this particular tree that I decided it was deserving of some kind of recognition and so I painted it...  or at least am in the process.  Because, you see, I totally ruined this painting with an idea that I had. I typically take charcoal dust and darken my watercolors with it.  That looked great!  But I noticed that an area I did not want darkened needed to be a bit lighter.  I tried to remove the charcoal, that didn't help like I wanted it.  I tried white watercolor.  Nothing.  White Gouache?  That was the nail in the coffin (another cliche).  I felt my heart sink.  I tried to remove the ugly gouache/charcoal mixture.  My heart sank deeper and a knot formed in my stomach.  Uggghhh.  Cuss words were flying through my mind.  I had to step away from the table...

I was sick over it.  There was no correcting this mistake (a mistake of charcoal, water, and gouache).  But the time I took away from the painting (a grand 10 minutes) gave me an idea.  I cut the magnificent tree out of the painting and am in the process of making the painting anew.  With my cut-out tree.  Is it EXACTLY the way I wanted it?  No.  It may be BETTER than what I wanted.  Isn't life usually that way too?