Going Beyond my Comfort Zone.

The familiar comfort zone is left behind

"Art is a space in which freedom tests its wings." - Marty Rubin.

(First published in November, 2017 and revised in 2024).

After 9 years of painting on a regular basis, I can say that art is rarely predictable.

However, as in other areas of life, in art there are patterns that are familiar and soothing. Now and then, it's good to try something a little more challenging, or if not challenging, then totally different from the usual routine.

Take my latest series as an example. I wanted to paint flowers on a rather large wood cradle board (12x36).  I chose pastel colours and was looking for a loose kind of feeling with drips to soften the edges of the flowers.

Within a few hours, I was ready to throw in the towel, or at the very least, add a thick blanket of gesso to cover up the mess that I had painted on the panel.

I had definitely gone way beyond my comfort zone!

Gesso is the answer

There is a feeling of relief when the disaster disappears behind a layer of chalky white gesso.  No painting is too precious that it cannot be covered up and completely transformed if I am not satisfied with the progress I am making.

"Dance of the Hummingbirds" mixed media on 12x36 wood cradle board.

I have painted birds before but never as the central figures in my painting.  Where did I get the idea of painting hummingbirds?

I might have been thinking of a conversation I had with my sister not long before I painted this scene. She was telling me about the hummingbirds that had come to her feeder during the summer. This is the only connection that I can think of that lead me to paint hummingbirds fluttering over the flowers.

I knew as soon as I was finished that it was one of the better paintings that I had ever done. It makes my heart sing each time I look at it and there is no better gauge of success than that!

Might as well stay out of the comfort zone

So now that I had left familiar territory (for me anyway), why not continue to work with this new technique.

Could I not add faces using that same methods?

How could I add more birds without being too repetitive?

These are the questions I asked myself as I stared at my hummingbirds.

After some thought, I had two sketches in my notebook that were transferred to two 9x12 wood cradles.

I had worked on a small series of four previously and I applied the same principles in these two paintings.

I made sure to use the same hair structure and background colour, the same kind of facial expressions to link both paintings together within the series.

And of course, there had to be birds if I wanted the pair to be somehow connected to the first painting, Dance of the Hummingbirds.