Finding the Joy

The mental shift that occurs throughout the course has to be the main benefit from doing Nicholas Wilton's CVP program.  I feel more deeply connected to my work and more committed to doing it.  I feel an eagerness to get to the studio, and much of the fear and resistance has been removed.  I still have sticky points when I'm afraid I'll mess up a painting that's going in a direction I like, or when everything is in that yucky area of no direction at all, but I have more confidence now that I can get through those periods by just showing up, finding something I love, and doing more of it.

Nick teaches to find the joy in painting instead of allowing yourself to get sucked into self-doubt and wallowing in a dead end.  If you like that little area of polka dots, do more of them.  Put polka dots all over your entire painting!  They might not remain in the end, but they allow a shift to occur where you are painting from a place of spark and joy, and that moves you forward.

Painting on multiple panels at the same time is essential for this process.  If you find you don't know what to do or are getting negative about your painting, it's time to move on to the next.  One painting will inform the next.  This little patch of turquoise against olive looks gorgeous here, so let me try that combo in this painting that isn't working so well.  They lift each other up.

This painting is on my easel right now.  A work in progress.

It's at a stage where I'm happy with the energy in it, but need to do more and clean it up some.  I need to be open to the fact that I might kill what I love in the process and end up having to take the painting in an entirely new diretion.  It's hard not to tighten up at this point and hang on to what's working there, but I'm learning to accept what arises to eventually get a better painting.  Who knows when that might occur, but I have more faith now that it will.