If you have been a follower of my blog you will have noticed that there has been a dearth of postings on the Challenge. The Challenge has become a challenge! Simply put, Week 11-Perspective, proved to be more of a challenge than I would have liked. I loved the concept that occurred to me. That was the idea that an old woman could sit at her dressing table, magically look into the mirror and have the years drop away. Her childhood self would appear and a story could evolve that included important aspects of her younger days. That was all fine and I created the painting to go with the story idea. Then the trouble began. The painting disappointed me. I stewed about it for a long time and finally stowed it on the bottom of a pile of work, where it has languished ever since. I thought that I would just go on with the next challenge. It was not that simple! I had good ideas but I just seemed stalled. That old lady kept creeping back into my mind! And so it has been for many weeks now.
That all turned around last week. I pulled the painting out of the pile and had a fresh look. Immediately some of the weaknesses became very clear to me. A consult with my friend, mentor, and illustrations expert, Peggy Collins, confirmed what I had seen and added more ideas for me. After that it was full steam ahead. So here is a picture of the truculent “Before” painting.
I won’t go into the changes that were made but the next version is much more pleasing to me in many subtle ways.
It is by no means perfect and there are more versions waiting to be created before a story book emerges, but I can live with the painting the way it is for now. It seems that I just needed a new PERSPECTIVE to get me going again!!!