This painting is a failure.
Yes, you read that right, I painted this sunrise in 2009, it was the view from our house in Taos Canyon looking towards the east, I used to love to watch the sunrise colors shine through the branches of a group of juniper trees and one young ponderosa pine.
I remember struggling with this painting for a long, long time. My sunset colors were too bright at first, I toned them down, but I couldn't get them to blend how I wanted, purple and yellow made an awful muddy color where they met in the sky, I couldn't get the dark color for the trees to be less transparent, plus the clouds looked just awful to me. I finally reached a point where I declared it “finished enough," put it away and decided painting sunrise/sunset landscapes was just not for me.
15 years later...
Imagine my surprise when I pulled it out of the cardboard box it was stored in last week and realized, it’s not as bad as I remembered, I had actually captured the look of those sunrises from that particular place and time!
What in the world was wrong with my perception that I thought this painting was such a failure?
If I remember correctly, I think I was too invested in making it look exactly like the photo. I had the idea that if I followed the colors in a photo precisely, my painting would be successful, I couldn't fail, and I was truly disappointed that I couldn't get the clouds or the colors to express the joy I felt on those mornings.
The irony is that this spring I finally made a little sunset painting that I absolutely love. I was taking a class on painting light taught by Jed Dorsey, and instead of following the reference photo for the class assignment exactly, I combined his color strategy and my own memories of Greece.
The sunset colors are kind of over-the-top bright, but I love them, as well as the whole glowing rocky shoreline moodiness of the painting. I didn't think I had sunset painting capability in me, but there it is!
This was truly a lesson learned, I think being so obsessed with perfection clouded my judgement, I couldn't see clearly what I had done right! I also never imagined that letting go of the strategy to copy colors exactly would give me more of what I was looking for.
Let go of the fear of doing it wrong, and trust more -
Happy Creating!
>^-^<
Tina
2 comments:
This reminds me of the paintings your mom did for each of us. She was following examples and when you saw those, you might think hers were so inferior. However, when separated from the original, hers became treasures. I love the colors you have put in the sunrises and sunsets! You captured Taos canyon view perfectly! 😍
I like this painting.
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