Stages...

That's a painting?!
Umm...not yet. It will be when I'm done, but it's got a long way to go. At least a dozen walks, countless sessions on Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming episodes of series that do not tax the brain too much and get you "in the zone", multiple cups of tea and coffee, and long sessions in the thinking chair deliberating on what to do next.

Thinking chair-complete with fuzzy blanket and pillows

Sometimes I believe that people think that paintings and other projects spring fully formed from the artist's head like Athena from Zeus (Don't get the reference? Greek mythology. Look it up. Lots of fun. Sorry. It's the librarian and the mom in me...) Or they think it's sort of like a coloring book. We draw the outline and fill in the colors. If only it were that easy...Sometimes you do have a vision what the finished project should look like and when you do try to put it down on canvas, paper, your media of choice-it never ends up looking like what you envision. That's when I feel like I have settled. Either because I have made peace with my mind and what I actually have created or because I have realized that I do not have the technical skills yet to complete it. But maybe someday in the future I will and I will try again.

Most projects evolve with many layers. The painting, uh background above started out like this:

I made this for an online class a couple of years ago and I can't stand looking at it any more. She has a really long face and crazy hair but the husband made a nice wooden support for it so I decided to recycle/reuse and covered it with lots of green paint. I've got a goal in mind so we'll see how long it takes me to get there.

Another project I started is this:

I think this had cute little bunnies on it and was headed to my daughter's room when she was 10 but I got sidetracked for about 10 yrs and decided to experiment with texture so I covered it with masking tape and gesso, put a layer of blue paint on it, and dabbed it with paper towel. I stared at it for a couple of days and decided it looked like a snow scene, so I added a layer of white acrylic along the bottom:

It seemed as though there was a cottage along the snow line, so I sketched that in too:

Who knows where it will go from here? That's the fun part. And if you don't like it-you can cover it up and start again. Hopefully I will have enough courage to go with the vision and try to make it come alive. There are more than enough seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation to make it so...