Tuesday, June 29, 2010

More wrestling...


Morning Celebration, in progress
© 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I love beginning a painting. I know for some people the white canvas can be intimidating, but for me it's invigorating. There are so many possibilities!

Morning Celebration, in progress. An important part of that process is painting upside down.
© 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The middle of the painting, for me, is much harder. I tell my students about how I was once told that, if you were to open up a cocoon before the caterpillar is ready (don't do it!), you would find green goo. The caterpillar has to, essentially, dissolve and reconstruct itself as a butterfly. Painting is like that for me. The middle section is a long period of green goo....

Morning Celebration, in progress © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I call it "the green goo phase of the painting." Knowing that every painting has to go through this is helpful. It helps me refrain from being judgmental as the painting goes through its awkward stages. Judgment is a creativity killer — it can stop the creative process cold, if you let it. So I don't.

Morning Celebration, in progress
© 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Sticking with this middle green goo part of the process is tough. It's just not going to be pretty. Another appropriate analogy is the growing-up process we all have to go through. The middle phase of the painting is like an awkward adolescence. Some paintings go through more extended periods of adolescence than others, and some paintings are less communicative and more sullen than others. My job is to stay with the process, and coax it into becoming what it needs to be. I don't know at the beginning of this what that will look like. Painting is a process of discovery.

More later....

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