My Process: Maybe Next Time I’ll Get It All Right
Real-life endings aren’t like the ones in movies. Loose ends tangle, fray, and blow in the wind, and memories hover forever in time.
Every time I begin a new painting, I approach my canvas the way we often approach life:
First, a color palette and a long-ago memory ignite a spark of possibility, a promise of something magical.
Next, a commitment. There’s the underpainting, brushstrokes, and an attempt to visualize the composition.
Then, I make the same mistakes a thousand times. I add, take away, and change a few things.
Finally, I change everything. And hope it will all come together somehow.
And eventually it does, more or less.
But the ending is never what I’d planned.
The commitment didn’t protect me.
But here it is: a product of hope, sincerity, and trying. Not what I’d wanted, yet beautiful.
Still, there lingers that original spark – a story unfinished. So, I pull out another canvas, select a palette, and begin again.
Maybe next time I’ll get it all right.
I leave my paintings slightly unresolved, like unrequited hope, with the ghostlike layers of effort evident beneath hazy skies. A soft glow offers a spark of hope and possibility. And petals, like memories, swirl in the wind with no place to land.
You can find my available work here.
Sending you peace, love, and painting,
Julie
