Lauri Waterfield Fine Art

What a good, productive day!

I set aside my latest painting and my "small brushes" and tackled painting the bathroom. Again. *sigh* The adventures of living in a 1940's house. The original owners had the entire interior sprayed with beige (yeck) latex paint when I bought it….problem was, they put latex over oil. It looked okay (except the weird yellow/beige), but the unvented bath caused it to peel after a while. Knowing it'd be a horrible job, I put it off until the whole room looked hideous, and of course, it became a bigger job than if I'd started sooner….

After scraping, sanding, spackling, sanding again, painting Kilz, then color, spackling & sanding again- on the ceiling as well as the walls-I've actually been thankful that it's a small bath. Today was a second coat of color and I swear it still needs touching up where the color turned "matte" over the spackle. >:( It's drying now, so I'll think about it tomorrow. (A little something I learned from Scarlett O'Hara)

So, I left the bathroom to dry and went back to another project that had been set aside- this one of Thistledown Farms for my friends Tim & Mary. And….although I was well along on the painting, and had made a few attempts already-believe it or not, I started over again!

Sounds crazy I know- or may even sound like I don't know what I'm doing, but no, I'm just finding my footing with landscapes and each previous work had that "spark" of something about it, but I was not yet satisfied with the "whole".  Constant growth is a wonderful thing- but it has its drawbacks, as you can see! Sort of like the body builder who outgrows his clothes, sometimes I look at something painted a year ago and feel like I would paint it differently now. And some paintings that I've saved from several years ago are surprising to me now! (I think I'll keep my High School art projects under lock and key)

For so long, landscapes were just the backgrounds for the wildlife I wanted to paint, and because they were a "necessary evil", they were something I dreaded and each one was a struggle. Then- and it didn't happen all at once, but gradually- suddenly I made my peace with landscapes and scenery, water scenes and trees became beautiful on their own, not as a "setting" for something else.

But- that also means that there's been quite a lot to learn along the way. I read once that an apprentice of Rodin, the Master Scuptor who created The Thinker and The Kiss, came into the studio one morning to find the artist in tears, sobbing uncontrollably. Thinking someone had died, the apprentice asked what had happened….and Rodin replied, "There is nothing more to learn!" He was brokenhearted to think that he'd gone as far as he would go with his Art.

Really a horrible thought…..and a moment I don't feel in danger of ever experiencing!