resolutions

so this year i have the usual resolutions... keep hitting the gym (love my aquafit class!!) try to lose weight (always) and start painting again. for some reason i have had some kind of "block" keeping me from painting even though i love it and think about it all the time. actually doing it just seems so hard...

i hauled all my stuff up to the cabin a few months back and then ignored it for the three days i was there sooo... i hauled it back home and it has sat waiting for me to dig out and DO SOMETHING!! i have read books on creativity and i guess it's just a fragile thing for me, not really doing creative stuff but attempting to paint is a struggle. i learned to paint from my dad after several horrible art classes in college and he was just positive and happy to hang out so i loved it. i had one plein air workshop that was amazing and i painted the two best paintings of my life there. when i took it the next year i struggled (while we thought our cabin was burning down) the entire week and actually walked out during my critique at the end. i just couldn't take the criticism which i KNOW is not meant to be personal but it just floored me. i think it's because i really don't know what i am doing and don't completely understand the "how to's" of painting in a formal way. i am just playing around and if something is not the right tone or value or ??? i have no clue. i just know that "something is wrong" or "something is right" and thats about it. anyways! i am so happy i just jumped in today and knocked this little painting out:



i went back to my basics, back to how my dad and i painted and just copied something i liked, using it as a reference and tweaking it as i went along. i really liked how it turned out, especially since my brushes are pretty wonky and i wasn't using the right palette to mix paints. i bought water based oil paint and it was wonderful! hardly any smell and everything cleaned up great. hoping i can continue chipping my way back to a regular painting schedule!!