Paintings gone Awry

More often than not, when I try to paint with watercolors it all goes awry and I end up overdoing things and the painting becomes muddy. The top painting here is no exception. I didn't really work with the watercolors. I think I tried too hard to control them. I think with watercolors (which I really don't know much about), you can't fight with the medium. You have to go with the flow. This watercolor landscape was attempted from a step by step demonstration in a book. Sometimes I feel like I need to try step by step demonstrations, but it rarely works for me. I'm then too conscious of following the steps and I don't really "see." Drawing and painting is all about seeing and step by step sort of takes away from the big picture, I think. Anyway, this painting is not good, but that's o.k.. I tried. Practice always makes better. Maybe I'll try another watercolor landscape without the hindrance of step by step instructions. In my defense, I do have to say that the sky is o.k.. That's the one part that didn't become muddy.

And as for the abominable snow monster (acrylics), even though he's not abominable, he's not the best either. And I'm not saying this in a kick myself sort of way. I'm just being honest and pragmatic. He was actually painted on the day of our big snowstorm about a month ago (yes, I got inspired by the arctic whiteness outside my window. As annoying as the snowstorm was, it was also magical, as snow can be), but I never scanned him or thought about posting him until tonight. But since I decided to make this post about paintings gone awry, I thought I would include him. Even though I felt inspired at the time, he just didn't turn out in the way I envisioned. That happens sometimes. My abominable snow monster figure that I used for the painting is still standing on my dresser. I love him so much more than this painting. I think my main problem with the painting is my failure to render the fur well. I just haven't worked out a good way of doing fur in acrylics yet. It seems that I'm always painting pachyderms, so I haven't had a lot of fur practice. I do, however, like the way his arms and hands turned out. And I did capture the abominable snow monster attitude, I suppose;) I guess I can always find something slightly positive, even in the paintings that I'm not overly fond of.

I spent most of the day as a bit of a slug. I started things off in a productive way as I made bread and rearranged my book shelf in the morning, but I didn't do much after that. I've been head achy and stomach achy most of the day, but I'm not really sick--just experiencing a bit of malaise. It happens to us hearty types once in awhile.

In other news, I should mention that I like my new scanner. I don't seem to have to do as much color or brightness contrast adjustment as I did before. And that's all I have for you tonight. My general malaise and I are going to sign off and be slugs for the rest of the night. Blogging was too taxing for us.