The Little Death

It's colder in the studio today - expected since the temps got below 40 last night. So before coming out, I'd pulled on some long-sleeve thermals.

Even before I flipped on the overhead lights, I could see from the light shining-in from the front that the skin I'd painted the day before was too pink, the whites of my eyes, too blue.

'I'll have to check myself in the mirror again.'

I suspect that as the paint dried overnight, it changed in its color intensity - something I've yet to get a good bead on… remembering that the acrylic suspension of pigments is whitish before it dries clear - something that gives wet paint a tinted, less intense appearance before it dries. It's still maddening to find out 'you've done it again.'

The blue will be a slam-dunk to correct, being such small areas. The pink, well, that's another matter.

Studying the painting today - after trying to take a break from everything the whole day yesterday - I still feel exhausted, and hardly up to working on it again.

'I put too much into it,' I think. 'Too much,' and wonder again if what I've been told is true. If it is, then whatever it is that's drained out of me ends-up on the canvas.

'A little death.'

It's not like that with everything I paint, only the ones I care about. And I suppose it shows in the paintings. It does to me. But then, I know what it took for each and every painting… which ones count and which ones don't… which ones I'd find hard to part with, and the ones I can't wait to get rid of.

This one is important, but I wonder if it should be any more important than any of the other paintings. It was meant, after all, to be just a study, to see if I could do something before I did the "final." But so was "Blue Hunger," and like that one, this one's already crossed that boundary. It holds more potential than merely an exercise in painting technique.

It should be at the end of the Exigency series, the end of the exhibition - the end of the story - the last one anyone sees. And so I wonder too if it should be my eyes or someone else's - the eyes of someone else with more wisdom, more peace with the truth, more understanding and compassion, more courage… and less fear.

Time to paint again.