The person who is receiving this painting as a surprise gift is all about pink - I knew I had to make pink a major element. Her mom sent me some lovely photos of them competing at shows. Karma (the horse) is a very fancy upper-level warmblood Dressage horse. The photos are formal - Karma is braided and wearing a bonnet. This isn't my world - I thought about how I would approach this and kept coming around to being true to my aesthetic, which is natural and finding the personality of the subject - Karma is a very sweet mare and Ashelely equally so. I wanted this work to represent their natures and spirits. Whereas the painting of Veronica shows her sass and confidence, I wanted this one to show gentleness.
It was all going very well - I was happy with the background, the flowers, the drawing of Karma/the painting of Karma was going well, until the forelock - this was supposed to be the easiest part - a swoop of her bangs and viola! painting accomplished. Nope. The brush had a big glop of paint that made karma look like she had a '60s mod Beatles inspired hairdo. Fuck. I tried to fix it, and it got worse - kept trying and it got so bad I was convinced I had ruined the whole painting after about 15 hours of working on it. I was beside myself. I couldn't believe this work was ruined. After some very frustrating attempts, I got up and went for a walk. When I came back I sat down and quietly problem solved how to fix the mistake and it came around to something I liked better than the original. Such a lesson in this. Don't work when you're frustrated, stay calm, and think it through.
I finally got the nerve to send it to the person who I was making it for - I was convinced she would cringe and try to be nice, but this was her response:
It is heavenly & better than I could envision. Adore the pinkness, too 💕🦄💖 Deborah, it’s perfect.
It's definitely not perfect, but that's not what I do. I make emotional paintings. It makes sense because I am a sensitive soul.
I love them both <3
ReplyDelete