Mari Musings

Wow, it's almost Valentine's Day! Maybe it's silly, but Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday. It's low pressure, red and pink, and there are hearts and chocolate everywhere. I love taking time to tell my loved ones how much they mean to me, especially Dudu. I've been sick in bed for the last week with the flu, and he took such good care of me. I'm so grateful.

Speaking of being bed-bound... it sucked so much LOL. I have a low social battery, and I have trouble keeping in touch. And, simultaneously, dialetically, I'm an extrovert. My cup is filled by being around people, and when I'm isolated, as was the case as I recovered from the flu, I feel so sad. I'm okay with being by myself and enjoy my alone time. But days of being stuck in my house by myself really gets to me. It makes me so crazy that I start missing my cubicle and the mean old ladies I work with. Thankfully, I am finally feeling well enough to rejoin society after a week in bed. I'm sure the feelings of 'please on the love of everything, let me go home' will return after a day or so hahaha.

As for Valentine's Day... Dudu and I don't have any plans which is just the way we like it. I'm going to buy him some model paint for his Warhammer figures he bought last weekend. I'm sure he will want to paint together, so let's count that as a date. Regardless, I love sitting next to him while we work on hobbies. I will be sure to share photos of the finished figures — they are pretty cool!

Here’s something I drew in about May last year. A coworker gave me a weird, square sketchbook. This drawing is a little rough, but it’s so cozy… I just used regular old Crayola colored pencils and a pen.

Feeling: A bit anxious

Watching: Grey’s Anatomy season 3

Reading: What Lies Beyond the Veil by Harper L. Woods (previously dropped)

Listening: Candlemass

Last January, I started working on a painting of Clover using shojo illustrations as my inspiration. I studied and referenced several CLAMP paintings while working on it. After about a month of working on and off, I decided it was finished. I'm not sure what my thought process was in deciding I was done with it. I had finished the line work, the second pass of rendering, the background... Perhaps I was sick of looking at it and wanted to move onto something else. Either way, this is what it looked like in February when it was 'done.'

It's pretty, and I like it. But even at the time, I knew it could be better. I knew that I my painting skill could go beyond the 'finished' state, but I stopped pushing myself. I'm not sure why.

Several months, a couple paintings, and hundreds of sketches later, I started thinking about the techniques of the Renaissance master painters. I don't remember what lead to this train of thought, but it was a key point of discovery in my journey as an artist. The father of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, would work on his paintings over a number of years. There are several reasons for this such as the time consuming nature of sfumato, his work aside from painting, and da Vinci was a perfectionist. I notice in my own work that I dislike the idea of returning to a painting after starting something new. I have gigbytes of abandoned files with hours of work spent on them that I simply leave to digitally rot in my computer. When working on a piece, I push myself to 'finish' because I know, consciously or not, that if I move onto something else, the painting will never be done. After casually reading about da Vinci's work, I remembered that painting in January I was done with, though not quite satisfied with.

I opened the file again and examined my work with fresh eyes. Of course, with distance, it's much easier to see areas of improvement objectively. My first 'finished' version of that painting is pretty, but it lacks contrast. It needs better lighting to show the viewer where they need to look. The clouds are aimlessly placed, lacking direction and composition. The lace trim I hastily placed last-minute cheapen the painting, and it's easily the weakest point. It's just distracting. This isn't self flagellation – it's honest self critique of a painting that I was proud of. Everyone has room for improvement.

Sometime in October, I started fiddling around with the painting again, and about a month ago, I 'finished' it again.

Much better.

I'm pleased with my improvements. If I were to go back and change anything, I would blur the edges of her wings and the back layer of her hair to allow for more depth. I could also probably push the contrast a bit more.

Overall, I'm happy to have identified this habit I have in my art, and I'm think I'm a better artist by challenging it. Plus, it's fun to take my work to the next level, even if the changes are subtle. ♥