Can't help myself.... Yeah, I know what I said, but...

Okay, so they say that the first step in a cure is admitting you have a problem. Fine, I have a problem.

No matter how much I want to quit doing pictures like the cascades and blossoms and quit spending the stupid amounts of time they entail, when I'm caught up in them I find it nearly impossible to stop.

First, a photo. Then the inevitable boring text. Sorry, you have to take the bitter with the sweet.

Diagonal Blossom - watercolor on Bristol board - started 1/6/15

As of 1-9-15: about 250 cells so far, with about 2,750 more to go

Five or six years ago I put in some little things on a sheet of hot press paper. I was trying to make something that looked sort of like a basket weave pattern. It didn't look like a basket weave, but it looked amazing. The thing confused me so much that I set it aside for later. A couple years went by and one day I discovered the sheet in a stack of practice pictures, partial pictures, and various pictures that I had given up on. For no reason I can identify, it suddenly seemed to make sense. I started back in on the picture, making more little bits, adding to what was there.  Long story short: The picture ended up being the first large blossom picture I would do. It would eventually end up winning an award in a national exhibition.

Here's the important aspect: From the moment I resumed working on it I believed in that picture. Every little bit I added (and later referred to as "cells") seemed to make the picture more real, more beautiful.

Two or three years ago, something similar happened. I had just bought some Strathmore 500 Bristol board and wanted to try it out. I put in a handful of cells on a sheet of the Bristol and almost immediately I knew - I was certain - the picture was going to be something special. The Bristol was taking the watercolor in a wonderful way, the brush tip was putting the paint on wonderfully, the colors felt velvety... Honestly, it was like an electric shock or something. The picture took months to finish. I submitted it to a huge international exhibition in China and it was accepted.

Here's the take-away, though: I worked so hard on that picture that I developed a love-hate relationship with it. I never once wavered in how much I loved what it became, but I actually grew to resent the picture and the demands I felt it was placing on me. That's the picture that drove me away from painting. I've mentioned this in another post: For five months after finishing that picture I didn't pick up a brush. I couldn't put myself through it again.

And now, the picture in the photo above. I started it yesterday, just breaking in a new brush, making some small cells on a 14 X 20 piece of Strathmore 500 Bristol. And here's the part that matters: Almost from the first cell I knew: This picture can be something like the other two, something I'll look back on as being special. Whether it will grow into something that fulfills its potential remains to be seen, of course. What you see in that photo is a very small portion of the ultimate picture. The painted area is only about 3 X 3 inches. The cells are very small, something like 13 or 14 per square inch.

The picture will take months. I've promised myself I won't work on it exclusively. That's the best compromise I could reach, even if I'm disappointed in myself for forgetting my vow not to work on this sort of picture at all for a while. If the picture works out, though, maybe I'll also forgive myself.