Growing up

It's funny that when we you use a bigger brush, start blocking in color, use less color more carefully, remember to look where your sunshine is coming from - they say "your work looks more mature". Those boring things we learn along the way like adding every little detail, using color indiscriminately, being afraid of adding the darks, never looking to where your light comes from makes us look like we are just learning to speak this expression of art. If we only go back to our childish ways, sometimes our paintings grow up. Maybe because it's so hard to stop yourself from trying to give the viewer more than we think he needs. It's funny that our paintings begin moving out of adolescents when we begin moving back to simplicity.

I'm glad I'm seeing a little growth in my paintings. I hope you see it too. But it can be a little scarey growing up. But I just have to keep letting go of what has always been in me and let my little girl child paint.... freely again, without the critic in my ear, without the chatter in my head.

I still have a thousand paintings in front of me. And me and my girl-child will grow old together down this path. You just wait and see.