Hardened Tubes of Paint

A cursory look at the painting I'm working on will tell you that the piece is in danger of getting stripped from the frame and shoved into a bin. But I remind myself to be patient and if the work turns out “that” bad, then I should at least try to learn something from the debacle.

I've had this unfinished work for ages – maybe around half a decade. After painting in the washes as guide, I stopped to allow the paint to “dry” before proceding with the second layer. From that moment on, I began to harbor doubts if I had the ability to push through with the work. Before long, I was finding all the excuses in the world to stash the work and hide it from my sight. The consequence of all that self doubt is that I stopped painting altogether. I've even blogged about this same frame almost four years ago: 

http://flickofdaswitch.blogspot.com/2005/10/unfinished-painting.html

Talk about harboring some intense self-doubt! That's one heavy emotional baggage being dragged there.

Though it's childish to blame inanimate objects for errors in your ways, I can't help but feel that this frame had acted as a barrier that prevented me from painting all these years. It's really been that long that I had to throw some paint tubes away as the paint had hardened inside their tubes! The ones I can use, I have to cut with a bit of white spirit first just so that I can load the brush with it.

As I restarted work on this frame, I found it annoying that the lessons I learned in using watercolor and oil pastels were intruding at the work at hand. I was reminding myself to be liberal about squeezing paint out of their tubes, and stop scraping the leftover film of paint on the palette.

I really should be painting right now than writing. Really. But I thought it would be good if I just stand back for a moment and try to internalize what I have learned last night. Holding that brush with a daub of paint at the end felt awkward. As I made my strokes, I was reliving the lessons I learnt in art class from Mr. Cummerford, more than a decade ago.

Ahh... during the final weeks of my senior year in high school, we were given access to the art rooms after school hours. Whenever Mr. Cummerford would leave the rooms all to ourselves, we would make our way up the roof and light up cigarettes and engage in some deep and thought provoking conversations about our artworks drying in the rooms below us. Though I've quit smoking and really hate the habit, I am thankful for such memorable and fun memories I have of other smoker-student-artists. We'd sit there admiring the yellowing sky as it filters through the leaves of gum trees above.

When Mr. Cummerford ushers us back into the rooms, he'd crinkle his nose and ask if we had been smoking. We'd simply say we were all up in the roof trying to find something that will inspire us. He'd nod and go about looking at our progress with our works. Try doing that in economics! Smoking within school premises can actually get you suspended.