A beginner's frustration...

Let me preface this post by saying that I am a total perfectionist. I am detail oriented and demand that things are done right. I also pickup new things relatively quickly. I've always done well in school because I usually grasp concepts immediately. In fact, I become incredibly frustrated when I have trouble doing or learning something new and I tend to give up quickly, consider myself a failure, and not think about whatever I'm struggling with ever again (sports are a great example; I am not a natural athlete and thus become frustrated when I can't hit the stupid ball). Because of my perfectionist tendencies, you can guess how something like art-in which I have never been formally trained-is very frustrating at times.

The past few days have been some of those frustrating, I-wanna-give-up sort of days. This guy was the problem:

Now, maybe a classic champagne is NOT the best color for your third traditional piece, especially when your first two traditional pieces frustrated the heck out of you because you didn't nail your reference shade just right. Maybe because you know how difficult painting light colored, gray-based pieces is, you should have painted this guy a nice bay or chestnut, just to practice those simpler colors on a larger piece (have I mentioned I'm an overachiever?) Maybe you should stick to perfecting your normal dapples before attempting reverse dapples.

But no. This guy wants to be a classic champagne, so he's going to be a classic champagne. It doesn't matter where your abilities are. Abilities? You understand the theory behind oil painting a model horse. You've read the tutorials and the books. What's Carol Williams got that you don't? If she can pull off complex colors, so can you. No problem. You know what to do.

Except once you get to the horse and you've got some beautiful shade of color worked out but you start shading and find that your paint is not giving you the full coverage that you want and is streaky and gloppy-hey, it sorta looks like hair texture-but you're going for smooth, soft color transitions and subtle color variation and fancy highlights and shadows and on and on until you're demanding perfection from this simple repaint that is, after all, your third attempt on this big of a scale!

Frustration ensues. You want to give up because it doesn't look like anything Carol Williams produces. It looks like crap. It should go in the garbage along with the other models that are giving you problems. Heck, you've got ten other models that should go in the garbage too because you are a failure because you are having trouble painting a simple classic champagne. And you should cancel your Blab subscription and delete your blog because there is no point in being involved in the hobby anymore. Better to stick with school, you're good at school. You suck as a model horse artist.

Then you step back, in a bit of a sweat. You look at the model from the other side of the room. Doesn't look too bad from there. Actually, it looks a lot like the reference photo. You get a little closer. Sure the shading isn't perfectly smooth, but haven't you read somewhere that certain colors may take many layers to build up? And you did thin this paint quite a bit. You put it on the shelf and come back the next day. You decide to experiment (horse can't look any worse than it already does). How about a bigger paint brush? That looks cool. Hey, look there! Another layer is evening out that shading. And if I brush in the direction of hair growth, it really does create a hairy sort of texture to the piece. Those dapples need some work, but if I brush some lighter color over them once they dry it will set them into the piece more and not look like they were just painted on.

Well, look at that! He doesn't look like a Carol Williams piece, but wait...you're not Carol Williams! Or Steph Michaud or Liesl Dalpe or Mel Miller or any other of those painters that you like. You're Jamie Kern and you're new at this, which is why you created a blog documenting your beginner steps, INCLUDING your mistakes! You are an individual artist working on developing her own new style! Maybe someone will like it! Maybe some won't. Why are you doing this? Because it's a break from the rest of your life! Because you like to relax and do something that doesn't involve science or thinking about rocks and bones (because you're a paleontology major). This is relaxing for you (or used to be); an artistic outlet for your overwhelmed brain. Why are you working yourself into a lather over a peaceful pastime?

And then everything seems much more pleasant. Sure, you might not have amazing NAN qualifiers before that show in September. But you can at least go watch and observe some amazing pieces by some of your favorite artists and maybe even bring a few of your own pieces for others to critique. You sit back and admire your work some more and it occurs to you that your TWH is a pretty impressive piece for someone with absolutely no art experience. You put him away, thinking that after tomorrow, he might look even better!