You know there is kind of a nice spontaneity to a sketch, lots of motion and energy is expressed in the lines.... but at some point you have to move to color, and the more finished and polished you try to make the image the harder it becomes to maintain that spontaneity.... its dang hard to do!
I had an instructor in college named Doug Fryer.... excellent artist, and he used to look at my art and say something like "Mark, don't get too constipated" I'm pretty sure he was not referring to my lower gastrointestinal tract... so I can get waaaay to wound up in a painting and get my head all out of sorts, usually because I'm looking at one of my favorite artists and I have this dialog going in my head that sounds something like, "how come he/she is sooo good and my picture looks like poo poo kaka!" I think this is what professor Doug was referring to as being "constipated." I've found that when I get caught up in the angst of my mediocrity, I can sometimes break out of it by just getting back into the sketch, which is what I have done. Now I haven't made any real progress in painting, I've just kept the image from going down the drain.... I still have to paint the darn thing. Well look for the next update in a few days, I really have to put this one down right now because I actually have paying customers to attend to.
