Who needs critics? I've got me.

It's a shame any of us has to grow up before going to art school. 

It has been a while since I mused aloud on the inherent problems of creating pictures. But today, after a sleepless night in which the idea for a semi-Persian miniature tromped all over the Fields of Morpheus with heavy feet and clanging bells, I find I cannot go on.

Don't be afraid. I don't mean that as in, "I can't go on, therefore I am taking arsenic."

I mean I can't go on with the painting. At least not now.

See. There it is. An egotistical unwillingness to tear up the paper--expensive though cold-pressed watercolour paper is--and start again, possibly at another image entirely.

Or, I could go back to it and reclaim it, as I did thousands of times--literally thousands--during my life as a journalist, but have not yet learned to do as an artist. Or not well, anyway. A couple of months ago, after working and working and working on a portrait of Boadicea (or Boudicca, if you prefer, but I'm very fond of the Latin) drawn from a modeling session a month or so before that, and Celtic lore, I gessoed the canvas.

My husband was horrified. He liked the portrait. He liked it when it had boobs, and after they got cloaked. He liked it when the face was too ruddy, and when it was too pale. I liked it none of those ways. I did quite like the hair, embellished with some gold paint woven through it as light-catching strands and also as part of a hair decoration, and I liked the background. It was so fen-like. I was really very pleased with that.

But the main part of the picture was a disaster.

What I'm working on today, the semi-Persian miniature, is not even close to deserving my disdain the way the Boadicea did. But I did notice that the sky was not quite the teal I had imagined, and, actually, the thing looks a bit "school-ish."

***

So of course, I took a nap. It is now two hours later, I'm awake (sort of), the dog and cat have been fed, and I am busy destroying my adrenal health with a cup of strong French roast coffee accompanied by pain au chocolat with chocolate cream cheese on it. I was quite peckish, always am after a nap, and drinkies and dinner are 1.5 hours off.

The picture, barely started, isn't as bad as I thought. After all, the only things done so far are the sketch and the three main color blocks. Since it's a sharp focus watercolour done wet on dry, I'm going carefully. I can adjust the sky later, which I couldn't do wet-on-wet.

But I really do need to stop being an adult about this, and assessing every little bit as I go.

Or maybe it's age. I don't have a 40-year career stretching ahead of me at this point, in all likelihood. Being a Type A, I naturally pressure myself to get to the professional level I desire RIGHT BLOODY NOW!  Ostensibly so I can enjoy its fruits for longer, of course, never mind that I am driving myself nuts on the way.

We are so crazy, humans are. And artists are possibly undeniably the nuttiest of us all. I'm proud to claim it, really. I certainly wouldn't want to be a well-balanced banker, for example, hated these days more even than dentists. Being an artist gives one a lot of latitude to be a child.

Now if I could only figure out how to do that....

PS I put up a Marley version of Paul Simon's song because it seems closer to the simple original than Simon's recent performance versions. More childlike. More about connecting the inner to the outer, the child to the adult...and very importantly, vice versa. Mind you, I still love Paul Simon, always have, but reggae and the name Marley...well, enough said. Hope you enjoyed it.