After you get your underpainting completed, all the basic shapes and colors are on, basically your canvas is covered, you’ll often look at it and think, sheesh, this is horrible. This is also when a lot of artists give up and throw it away. There’s a saying “you win or you learn” and that’s very true in painting. You win – meaning you created something you love or “you learn” – meaning you don’t like it but you learned a lot. Either way, it’s a win. You won by creating something you love or you won by learning something about your art and hopefully about you.
I’ve been painting for over 20 years and I now know if I keep going the painting will improve. I figure things out as I go. Stepping back, studying the work, seeing what I need to do, then doing it. I’d only done the underpainting. There’s tons more strokes to go as I create the actual painting, but it does look horrible at that point, so don’t give up.
I quickly did the underpainting of this one late last week after a very rough week of skin cancer removals and 2nd covid-19 shots and was very tired and very frustrated with what I accomplished. Today I got back in the studio and started refining the painting. I did the clouds live in real time on my private Facebook page for the Beginner’s Painting Club. It’s one of the benefits of membership. Then I did some time lapse videos of the different sections of this painting. I also took some still photos of the work as it progressed. I made this short video so you can see how the painting went from “ugly” to “gee, I really like it”.
I knew I was tired and didn’t feel well and I also knew not to give up. I knew it would improve. I want you to know you shouldn’t give up either. Keep painting – keep learning.
Click HERE to watch the video.
Click HERE to learn more about the Beginner’s Painting Club.