It’s not procrastinating if you need to do it…

It’s not procrastinating if you need to do it…
Almost finished.

Friday I started a new adventure. I have been feeling like I needed an artistic shove, and so when Ruth Armitage advertised she was doing a new, 6-month mentorship program called Roaring 20’s, I decided to go for it. Friday was the first meeting of my group. I would guess there are about 20 people in the brasserie, and my group within that consists of three other fabulous artists: Melissa Gannon, Susan Schenk, and Glenda “GG” Goodrich. What a group to be in.

These meetings will happen monthly. Each participant started with a critique of current work and ended with developing a goal for the rest of the month. The goals must be SMART goals (S = Specific, M = Measurable, A = Achievable, R = Relevant, T = Time-based).

I chose this recent painting for my critique.

The Getaway

And my goal, generally, is to work on being more expressive and emotional in my painting. Specifically, to make courageous decisions!

My SMART Goal:

  1. Leave out some information
  2. Change something
  3. Define what emotion (in the beginning) I am trying paint. What is the personal connection to me?

One question Ruth asked in the preliminary stages of this endeavor was, “If you could create art about only one thing it would be________________.”

Horses.

So what did I paint this weekend? Obviously, not horses.

I have been deeply affected by the death of George Floyd and the harassment of Chris Cooper. I’m toying with the idea of a series exploring, in the words of Kelly Wilson, the timeline of racism in my own life. While I don’t feel up to the challenge, I have always wanted to paint this woman.

So, I did.

Vibrant Pesonality

I very rarely do portraits. But it something new for me!

Of course, now that I was completely off track, I decided to tackle two other projects. Just to get them out of the way, you understand, before working on my “real” goals.

My Aunt Robin has wanted me to do this dog portrait for over a year. I’m not very excited about it, but it’s a family thing.

Thistle

It still needs some work.

And since I was on the subject, I decided to paint a portrait of a friend’s service dog. I had been wanting to do this for a while, but she told me last week Dani had been diagnosed with lymphoma.

Dani

Honestly, this year is just crap.

In good news, the guys came today to take down my old fence and put up the new one. It’s a three-day job and after day 1, it already looks better!

2 Comments on “It’s not procrastinating if you need to do it…

  1. Tara, I have noticed that you do an excellent job of painting animal expressions and postures—-which express their emotions. You’re very sensitive to those nuances—-which many other artists may not capture because they never “see” them. Your show at Bush Barn provided a show full of examples of your sensitivity to them.