A Different Direction

"Good Morning" 8"x10" oil on panel,Gessobord ©2014

My friend Evelyn here in New Zealand commissioned this painting for her husband's birthday last October.  She wanted a seascape with the boats in Island Bay. I haven't considered landscape painting to be one of my strengths, every time I have tried it in the past, I haven't been completely satisfied with the results. I did, however, want very much to please my friend.

I can never tell if this irresistible pull to please people is a positive or negative thing in my life.  On the plus side, I will face all sorts of fears and resistance to please someone or a cause I care about, but on the other darker side, I will also trample over what is best for myself to achieve this goal. Ouch! Does anyone else struggle with wielding this double-edged sword?

After taking over 200 pictures of Island Bay, stressing mightily over boat arrangements and painting ocean waves, (arrrrgh!) I felt reasonably happy with the result.  More importantly, Evelyn and her husband were happy with the painting!

I am bringing all this up because of my interview with the gallery last week. My darling cats were not a good fit there. After thinking about this situation, I proposed painting a series based around the rock cairns I photographed here last fall in Island Bay. I wouldn't have had the courage to even offer this if I hadn't completed that painting for Evelyn. The owner is interested to see them and now I need to get busy painting.

I am hoping I did the right thing.  I love my cats and I wanted to stay true to my earlier commitment to paint a monthly cat art piece this year.  I'm also excited to try the new series, but I have a sneaky suspicion that I may be putting too much on my plate again, which will result in feelings of overwhelm and anxiety.  (There is also my album of songs about grief that I promised to finish, my regular blog and newsletters to write, plus looking for a part-time job...)

It's a wonderful thing to be able to dream up more projects than I can possibly do.  It's not so fun to have to decide which ones will get to exist in reality.  Wish me luck, I realize am not very good at saying "no."

>^-^<  Tina 

My inspiration for the new painting series

 p.s. If you are not a newsletter subscriber and you would like to read last week's post featuring"The Safety Zone", all about what I learned from my anxiety meltdown in going to approach a gallery, click through to a copy on my facebook fan page here:  Tina Welter's Artist Life Experiment