Painting through insecurity

Sometimes personal projects get shelved due to life upheavals. A lot of the time, we never revisit a half started piece. The project we were so engrossed with before, is now forever associated with the catastrophe. And that can be hard to work around.

Two years ago, I was on a personal high. I felt invincible with my paintings, everything was going according to plan. Everything flowed like it was meant to be.

This is two square paintings sat on top of each other for a photo. The bottom one is complete. The top one was a very early WIP. But my soul was SINGING that day while painting.

When I share my pallet and my paints in a posed photo like this, it's because I adore what I’ve done and want to memorialize the moment.

Then one fateful day I was checking my emails like usual, to find that I had some emails from the contests I applied to, weeks prior.

I had sent out a slew of applications to contests and galleries, fully confident in my work and ready to share it with the world.

I was very blindsided to discover not one place was interested in working with me, that I didn't get into any contest. It was rejection after rejection. Kind rejections, encouraging rejections, but a rejection still.

Yes well Everything I was working on at the time got permanently shelved. I felt like the only rejected artist to ever exist-a statement that is overly dramatic and false but, it's how I felt. The rejection hit deep wounds.

I nursed the pain with drawing transformers for a fandom that likes what I have to offer. Their support and encouragement + willingness to pay me for my drawings meant that I am good enough to do this business. I just haven't found my original niche yet.

And so a year passed, and it's January all over again. This is when the art calls and contests for the summer months are starting. I glanced over the rules and requirements for a handful of art calls that spoke to me, and something inside me said ok let's try to show the world our paintings again.

IT FEELS FUTILE BECAUSE IVE BEEN DOWN THIS ROAD A FEW TIMES ALREADY. And the rejections don't hurt any less. I've wondered if I'm a glutton for repeat punishment.

But my art has improved since I last applied, and I think it's worth trying again. Maybe this time I will get in! Or maybe not. Maybe this will be the last time I apply for many years. Who knows.

I know that I have a bunch of paintings I’ve worked hard on and one that was left in a work in progress state, and I knew that I wanted to revisit it.

FUNNY THING ABOUT PICKING UP ON SOMETHING A YEAR LATER; some concepts that meant something to me back then, mean little now. So I nixed the Koi and the bowling alley carpet and replaced them with Dolphins and programmers codeing.

This painting went through many revisions, and it took some soul searching to find momentum again on this piece. The previous rejections played like a loop in my head, I doubted my choices and repainted things multiple times.

But eventually my stubbornness paid off and I found a flow with the painting again and went full speed ahead. See, you get a posed photo with a bit of my studio/kitchen behind. I was very pleased at this point.

I fell back in love with this painting and completed it finally. This photo shows it mostly complete. I'll save the final photo for another post.