[A rant written during my last painting session back in mid-December]
The truth is I have no idea if I'm any good. I paint scenes that look good to me and then think to myself, "I have no idea what that would really look like". I use photo references when I can but mostly I'm just painting completely out of my head. If I pay special attention and try to copy the details out of a photo I think the painting usually comes out better, but I always want to make it all up anyway. What the hell am I doing?
[and now... back to work. painting tonight. wish me luck cybervoid.]
4 comments:
If you stop painting, how will I ever find my way around? It goes without saying that I love your work,David, and if you're loving 'doing' it, (even if you DON'T love thinking about it) for God's sake, don't stop!
I've been through a lot of this myself lately (see my latest blog post). If you're feeling unhappy or unsure about painting from your head then maybe it's time to do some work that is highly-detailed from observation only. That exercise alone has helped me in my more intuitive work and has made me a bit happier with what I'm doing.
Best of luck and like Cile said, for God's sake, don't stop.
There is absolutely no doubt about it, your paintings are very good. You are also blessed with poetic night vision!
Photo references or not, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, as long as they don't obstruct the truth of the final work. You know all this of course and I hope that you've now stopped agonising? Until the next time anyway...
Self criticism and doubt are our constant bedfellows. They'll be back. In the meantime, keep painting my friend.
Thank you all three.
One cannot help having these moments of doubt. They don't last long enough to stop me from working but they're real enough that I thought I'd post an example from my journal. But, man, encouragement is nice.
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