Daily Painting by Sally Shisler, "Audrey's Table"

"Audrey's Table" (12x12")-201050
I have to admit that this is the first painting in quite a while that I have felt, finally, a bit of a breakthrough with. I think most of you who read this blog are artists, so I'll go ahead and share some of where my head was at during the whole thing. First off, this is a commission piece based on Grapes & Creamer (two posts down), so there was that - oh my god, can I do it again, fear. Then, because the painting needed to be bigger and I didn't want to paint the objects larger than life, there was the fear of trying to set up a flushed out still life that made any sense. I had to really put my mind to the test. There are artists who can happily spend hours setting up their still life scenes. I'm not one of them, mainly because I already spend oodles of time mixing my colors. And probably too because I'm not really very good at it. Then there's the studio lighting issues. Another thing I suck at and worry over. yada, yada.... I finally got my prep done and started into the work of painting. Every single time I paint, I get to a point early on where I trick myself into believing that somehow I have miraculously made it to the finish line much sooner than I thought I would. Hmmm - boy, after finishing this piece, I see how much more work I probably needed to do on a number of my old pieces (maybe even most of them). At any rate - working alla prima has always been my thing. I have totally avoided going back into paintings once I feel I've exhausted the possibilities they have. I think it's partly due to impatience, but largely to do with immaturity in my ability to visualize how to go about developing a painting further. I knew I needed to push myself with this one; slow down; ask questions; fix mistakes; alter color; reposition highlights, etc... And also keep some degree of freedom in the strokes. 90% of this is done with brushes. Though I intended to do the whole thing this way, I did bring the palette knife in just a bit on the table.

It may be a day too early to tell, but right now I feel I've done the very best I can to bring this painting to it's resting point. I do see a few things that could be changed, but I feel that old fear demon creeping up on me again, and I wouldn't be able to cope with ruining what's there. Besides, the client LOVES it!

'Constructive' criticism is welcome! Of course, so are good things :)

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