The Painting that was a decade in the Making.
Some things are worth the wait in the end.
A decade is not an exaggeration, if you check the back of the canvas you’ll see March 2010. My art teacher always made me date the back before I began a new painting. Granted, a lot has changed in my life over the last eleven years. I went to university, moved across the country, new relationships, bought my first home, friends circles changed and, to put it nicely, I have had a career path with curve balls to navigate. Art fell off my radar when I stopped attending lessons and so this unfinished canvas sat around, collecting dust.
Looking back, I think amidst the excitement of starting university and the freedom that came with living independently for the first time, something about my art hobby felt out of place. It was a thing of my past, a reflection of me as child, that as a young adult, turned into old skin I wanted to shed. I did bring over my drawing table and all of my art supplies with me when my move out West became permanent a few years later. Technically, I had no more excuses at that time but I still didn’t go back to painting or drawing. Art is a hobby that required patience and energy, neither of which I had yet. It took a couple of years before I found myself wanting to make time for art again. It came back slowly, occasionally I would see artwork that would remind me of how much I enjoyed painting
and then more and more often, I found myself seeing pieces that would inspire me to make something of my own.
Little tidbit, there was a couple of years when I lived downtown and a Michaels Store was on my regular commute home from work. They constantly advertised canvas sales in the window display so around this time I started picking up new canvas and I would tell myself, Nass if I have the canvases at home then I’ll maybe I start something new. Naturally that just resulted in about 16 (I counted) of them in the back of my closet, still in the plastic wrap and all. No big deal, that’s normal…right? By the time it came to actually setting myself up, I felt so out of place looking at this unfinished canvas and wanting to pick up where I left off. I told myself It’s just like riding a bicycle but of
course I threw on an added layer for myself when I was convinced that I had the lost reference photograph! I’m normally a fairly organized person and I knew I had brought it with me but it ended up being folded in the middle of paperwork. I spent a number of months trying to work on this from memory but that was too frustrating. I had no problem deciding how to finish specific features (house detailing, style of trees, bush colours, etc) and coming up with how I wanted to do it. The struggle came as I was midway through working on an area, it would be tying together nicely, but from time to time, I would have mental glimpses of the original scene and that made me unsatisfied with what I come up with. I couldn’t move on from that memory because I felt that whatever I was choosing to
do instead wouldn’t measure up in the same way so eventually I stopped working on it once again. I’m not a huge believer that things are always predetermined but, looking back, I think to some degree my subconscious exaggerated this internal conflict because it knew what was coming. During a spring clean, I ended up finding that original photograph buried somewhere I never would have thought to look. I had a mixed reaction, relief that I hadn’t actually tossed it out but frustration over all the time lost trying to work on the painting without it. Now for the kicker of this story, I ended up freestyling a lot of the detailing and my version of the scene bares minimal resemblance to the photograph. Seemed a bit questionable considering I desperately wanted to find it and put off working on the painting right??
Well, it all came down to the fact that this was the first oil painting I was completing on my own, I didn’t have the support of my art teacher so that reference photo filled that void I was lost in. I had always followed her direction and at different stages she would offer tips for refinement. She was there to guide me through what aspects to embellish and which colours to exaggerate according to my style. This time around I was trying to do that on my own for the first time and that was challenging to step in so I guess I had been grasping at any excuse to delay facing that discomfort.
Eventually I got my act together and I made this piece my own. I loved the fundamentals of this scene, quiet countryside setting with a homey cottage, lots of greenery and a path over the river. I didn’t get on board with the original colours though, I wanted a lighter, idyllic feel to emphasis the serenity of being in a remote place like this. I opted for more pastels and highlights and I took out the lamp posts and lights. I brightened up the water, put in fewer windows and I added more leaves to the trees for a fluffier look. I also wanted a human element to the scene so I added the person walking along the path.
Was this end result perfect? No but I don’t think perfection is my end goal when it comes to artwork. I could have gone for an endless amount of time
refining different parts and analysing it for opportunities to make it look more polished. I didn’t see any value in that though, I wanted to finish this piece and I got to a stage where when I look at it, it brings a smile to my face. It makes me feel calm and warm on the inside, especially on a rainy day when I would give anything to escape to a warm setting like this cottage. And for this piece, that brings me enough satisfaction to call it a day and move on.