One step forward, two steps back. I’m sure I’ll eventually get where I’m going.

I’ve been putting off working on this painting for months because I felt like it had reached a point where I could only screw it up. Lo and behold, I completely f-ed it up.

So here I was, feeling awful about screwing up this painting, when my husband came up behind me and said “Now, there’s just this thing with the mouth….” I lost it and painted a big cartoon smile. He just about hit the floor with shock, but it made me laugh. Laughing about it helped more than anything. I scrubbed off the whole face and started again. It looks a lot better than it did. Since I was no longer worried about screwing it up I fixed mistakes I had made before. It’s a much better likeness now.

I was going to take a picture of the face all scrubbed off, but my hands were completely covered in paint by then and I was all geared up to fix the mess I made. So you, dear readers, will have to make do with the f-ed up smily face. Both my husband and sister-in-law said it made them think of The Mona Lisa.

 

 

I feel like big part of my screw up was due to my emotions stress this last week. My dog, the one featured in last week’s post, had a medical emergency and came very close to dying. I’m grateful she pulled through and is recovering very well, but I was very shaken up by it. She’s been a part of my life for nearly 10 years now and her loss won’t be anything less than devastating.

Read more about this painting and see how it has progressed:

Oil Painting Portrait – Part 1

Oil Painting Portrait – Part 2

Oil Painting Portrait – Part 3

Oil Painting Portrait – Part 5

Oil Painting Portrait – Part 6