When I revisit this painting, I have a tough time looking at
it and all I can see are the glaring mistakes, improper technique, and bad
decisions. But to the person that owns it, it's on of their favorite pieces. I can't
explain their attachment to it any better than I can explain why someone
doesn't like peanut butter.
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| "Winter Hideaway" by Joseph Finchum |
What I see is...The streaks in the background sky. The bad
perspective, the not so perfect lighting and the muddiness of it all really
show the faults I had at the time. There are many bad choices in this
painting. Of course there are. I was just starting out and had limited
techniques. Mixing colors is a skill you need to master, especially when
dealing with oil paints that get mixed with a bit of or a lot of white. Using
to much medium can get messy quick and this is a lesson I learned while
creating this piece. Leaving to much paint on the brush would lead to either
putting too much on the surface or pulling paint directly off the canvas and
just smudging the detail. A gleaned a lot of information on layering and
blending paints together that I would not have learned otherwise. Looking at it
again now, I think I would have went back in and cleaned up a bunch of things
just to make it a little crisper. A few more touches of highlights and properly
colored shadows wouldn't hurt either.
Can these little mistakes make us better artists overall?
Absolutely it can.
With every mistake and every stray mark we make, we can
learn something new. Whether that lesson be a negative or a positive one, is
all in our point of view. These are the things we as artists have to think
about while we are painting and creating. If we become stagnant, we lose
direction and focus. We have to own our mistakes and be humbled by them.
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