One of my major challenges as an artist is the ability to create intentional art. What I mean by that is for example, the monotone painting I created this past weekend (below) was the result of the desire to do something different -a challenge of sorts. I painted this one and was very happy with it so I attempted to do another without success. And then I tried another and another and… another with no success.
I often find this happens; when I try something new, I am happy with the first piece and it goes downhill from there. Therefore my pieces tend to be one-offs – individual works not related to another other than being a landscape or a portrait or… etc. (There is a current exception right now with the nest series.) I would like to change this. I would like to know what I want to achieve and be able to achieve it.
Well, I say that… and yet I also love these surprise successes because they push me in new directions (the monoprint challenge is a good example). I am capable of improving, I just jump around a lot. And I feel like I have an excess of work which ends up on the trash can though Andrew tells me I’m likely not alone.
If I were capable of creating a success every time – would I get bored with making art? Or is that mindset stopping me from achieving that goal?
What I know right now is that I really, really want to make more successful monotone portraits.