learning to paint

It is wonderful that social media helps keep us in reach of our audience, but I admit to being somewhat torn about posting often; it seems contrary to the instinct of nesting, nurture and privacy that go along with developing a body of work.
I am at the beginning of a new exploration – one that is absorbing and which needs time to mature and form itself. I am researching and sketching, thinking and feeling my way into a new series.
I am also learning to paint. The last workshop I attended with John Luna at the beginning of August allowed me to at last feel that painting “is my own” even if it is feels unfamiliar and often awkward. It is a tremendous learning curve and one that at once challenges and nurtures my artistic instinct and mind.
Contrary to what is a very wise and useful approach- that of working on a number of pieces at once- these few weeks I have been working with one painting that I began as a part of a set of 3 at the workshop. It has filled my mind, with I and others, often thinking it close to finished but then it has asked more of me.
It occurred to me that this painting is like a mother- one that is teaching me a lot and allowing me to explore the problems of composition, colour, texture, narrative, abstraction and symbolism. I at once think it the most wonderful painting in the world and the most horrible thing I have ever seen!
The painting has been set aside now and the skills I have learned from it will inform the other two paintings I began at that workshop and even paintings I began last summer which have waited for me to gain more knowledge and confidence. Perhaps after a good rest, my eyes will be wiser and the painting will speak to me again as to what it might want, if anything at all.