A Roadblock: Canvas vs. Sketchbook

                  

First off:  both these images are unfinished.  (duh, right?)

But, the story is about how they emerged and how they may or may not become finished.

Now is the time in my Master's Plan to transition into painting on canvas.  Or so I thought.  Six weeks ago, I developed a Process Plan for my Master's project, expecting to, by this point, create something on canvas.  Traditionally, this should not be a problem for me, I have done many paintings, many of which are hanging around my house and in friends' houses.  So, I prepared the canvases according to my plan.. with complete intentions to begin working on a larger painting for this project.  Then I got stuck.  Inspiration was gone.

 I wrestled for days.  I beat my self up over and over.  I couldn't release any of the tension or stress I was feeling on the canvas like I was able to do through the drawings in the sketchbook.  I couldn't find an image or an idea to paint.   I couldn't focus.  I could imagine myself doing it, but it just wouldn't happen.  At one point, my daughter, being on the periphery of my moderate distress, walked by the canvas to give me a paintbrush that might help.  I saw her face in the light and asked her to stop.  Then quickly sketched out the illusive beginnings you see in the above left picture.  I studied it.  I recognized it as very creepy.  I was startled that my beautiful daughter's face would generate such a creepy image from my hand.  Then I heard a voice that someone once said to me, once upon a time, in jest, that I paint creepy pictures.  I got scared.

I felt my vulnerabilities had become exposed and that exposure paralyzed me.

Do I want to be the 'creepy picture person', where the dark side of me comes out for all to see?
I stopped, in greater distress, and couldn't do any artwork for many days.  When I started this image of my daughter's face,  I didn't have time to work through it, or press past the emotions of frustration and disgust and continue to paint so the creepy image dissipated.  Instead, I listened to the fear.  I allowed it to stop me.  I'd forgotten that I'm not done yet.

I experienced what so many of my students do when they get going on something and don't like it and just want to throw it away.  I wanted to abandon this.  The whole project altogether.  But I knew that can't happen so I haven't thrown it out.  It is still sitting on the easel, waiting.  But I haven't worked on it yet, either.

In disappointment, and with a sense of failure,  I went back to the sketchbook.. Remembering (at last) what I tell my students to 'begin where you are.'  The sketchbook had been working.  Begin again with the thoughts of joyous positive emotions - ignore that creepy intrusion.  Go back to the joy.
So I did.

The drawing on the right is what I am working on in response. In contrast, I am anxious to keep working on it.  The focus on abstraction is an intentional method to be kind to myself.  With abstraction, it is only me that needs to be satisfied.

One of my eight year old students wanted to see my notebook/sketchbook yesterday because they had heard about my brain-sucking tv picture.  She wanted to see ALL of it.  I quickly responded that I will show her only a few things, that some images are not ready for people to see and are private.

So, I see that the roadblock was about control.  In the sketchbook, I have control over who sees what.  As you can imagine, I show only those who I want to subject my work to, and only those whose feedback and input I want to learn from.  I can control the interaction and my persona that I construct for others to see.  I don't have to be the creepy picture person, where the dark side of me comes out for all to see.  In contrast, by painting on the canvas, my vulnerabilities became more exposed.  Literally its bigger, more public/more people can see it. More people can also then judge it.  But safely tucked into my sketchbook, my drawn and painted images are safe and my persona that I project to others through the art can be controlled. 

yeah, there's some opportunity for growth here... It will be interesting to see how this changes the more art I create...

It will also be very interesting to see -- when I can give myself the time and space to work through -- to push past the fears of exposing the creepiness - - it will be interesting to see what will emerge from that 'creepy' image of the face on the canvas...