i/ve always wanted to try my hand at painting. i/ve had oils and an easel for well over a year, but never made an attempt to do anything with them. this was partially because i knew that my first attempts would most likely be utter failures, and i/m not one for failure. finally i decided that doing nothing to avoid failing was far worse than any painting disaster i may encounter.

in my down time for the holidays, i made my first attempt at creating something with paint and brush. i decided to go with acrylics instead of oils – i figured it wouldn/t really matter either way, since i had absolutely no idea what i was doing, but with acrylics at least i could get the disasters over with more quickly.

the end product is the result of about 25 or so hours of making and correcting mistakes, figuring out how to mix colors, which brushes i got along with (flat #3) and which i were at war with (nearly the rest), spilling water jars and cleaning up the resulting mess, cursing myself for trying this then remembering why i wanted to do it, freaking out over having to attempt to replicate the script, and finally doing a bit of painting.

i should mention that the picture above is in black in white, but the painting is not. i want to save a little surprise for when the unwitting model makes her way back to this side of the country. if you/re interested in seeing the original photo i used as a ‘model’, click here.

as always, there are little (and larger) things that i/d like to do differently next time. but overall, i/m not too terribly disappointed. in the end, it/s all part of the learning experience.

willie nelson was with me at the start of this journey, followed by johnny cash, the ink spots, and finally bob dylan.