“A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art” so said Lucian Freud, and I am not sure I agree with him.
There have indeed been many moments with this work when I have been frustrated, angry, anxious, tentative etc etc, but every so often and usually by complete accident, I will put a touch of paint somewhere and the painting will just ‘sing’ and then there is indeed that moment of complete happiness.
Or I will end the day thinking something is not working here, only to come in to the studio the next morning and wow, the picture looks great and again then I have that moment of complete happiness.
As an artist, you can get so involved in your work and in a particular part of the detail that you can’t see the wood for the trees and get overwhelmed and lose confidence. That is the moment to step away from the painting and go for a walk, have a beer, read a book, whatever suits you, because when you return to the piece, you might just find that elusive dart of complete happiness.
My apologies for being absent from Twitter for a couple of weeks with my art updates, but I did my back in, resulting in unreal pain and no painting for about ten days … Worst nightmare for this artist!
If you would like to be kept up to date with what I am up to, please sign up for my quarterly Newsletter at the top of the Home page. Thanks.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.