a good whine

I'm incredibly frustrated with this whole painting thing. I think I am just over a week on the ordeal and I'm over it! I am not sure why it is I decided to do this. Thank goodness yesterday was a better painting day or I might not have made it in there today. Yeesh! I'm feeling pretty hopeless with it all. When I think about the "artist life" I think about peaches and roses and all sorts of sweetness. My mind conveniently edits out all of the intricacies and possible struggles.

What's it for? What's it for? That's what I ask in my mind over and over again as I paint. Even though I said what it's for when I started this whole experiment. "If you hate it this much" my demons say, "why don't you just quit?" I'm doing some serious mental battles here. I've written right on my studio wall "There is no such thing as failure only giving up" You'd think my demons would get the message but they press on.

And then there's the actual paintings...I'm sure the good days and bad days are obvious in the paintings themselves. Although I've not looked at them as a whole, from memory I've noticed some themes: the female form, pregnancy, bugs, nature, trees, fruits, squiggles and circles. There is a childishness to some if not most of the paintings. The content all seems a bit strange - but whatever. My job isn't to decipher or psychoanalyze what they are; my job is to simply show up every day whether I like it or not and get something down on paper with paint. So that's what I'll keep doing. Even though right now I'm looking very much forward to the end.

P.S. I've finally found my cord to the camera so I promise pictures will come soon!