Struggling through

Have you ever noticed that with some pieces of ART, you have to struggle to finish a project? For whatever reason, sometimes the work fights back and refuses to be done. This doesn't look right; that doesn't work, blah, blah, blah. "Day on the Farm" has been one of those pieces that has fought back with me, but I'm happy (and relieved) to say that I am done, done, done! As you'll remember this is the painting that became my Whistler's Mother. Here is what the final portrait looks like.

Whistler's Mother

"And here we have Whistler's Mother." Remember "Bean: The Movie"? If you recall the part of the movie where Mr. Bean has a problem with the painting above, you'll have an idea of what happened with Susan's painting ... Argh.

Every time I do a painting, I ask Greg to look at it and tell me what he thinks. He has a good "art eye" and I trust him to be honest with me and tell me what he thinks. He's given me excellent suggestions on every one of my paintings so far.

One thing that bothered me about "Day on the Farm" was that the old bumpy painting was showing through on Susan's face, and that was the exact thing that Greg felt needed changing. He suggested that I either build up the rest of the face or to sand it down. I didn't want to do either. Acrylics don't seem to "build up" too well, and sanding would just cause a big mess. Plus matching skin tones would be a hassle. On the other hand, I figured that if Greg was thinking what I was already thinking, then everyone else would simply zero in on the disturbing looking feature on the eye and face. I knew I should fix it somehow. So I asked Greg if he could try sanding it down. This is what the painting looked like when he returned the sanded down version to me. Yikes!

Once the sun comes up this morning, I'll take a photo of the completed painting ... again.