5×7″ oil on canvas board   (2.5 hours)   I hope to add highlights and shadow.

 

I went to my painting class yesterday. It had been two weeks since I attended. I was going to make it my last class, but when I got there I realized I had to pay for a new 4-session card. I thought I had a card left with one class to use. I have now committed to three more sessions.

I don’t really feel confident about my painting progress or future. I am just not that good. I admit I have improved as far as my ability to get my projects almost finished during class time, but I don’t have a real instinct for color, style, or composition. I am re-thinking my creative direction.

I have been told I am a good writer. I do love to write. I started a book and shared it with a few people and the response was unanimous. The writing was deep, fluid and powerful. All readers wanted more. I have not written in almost a year.

If I take a year to delve deep into my creative core, I think I might use my time wisely by writing and not painting. I could paint only as a past time and not as my live-or-die pursuit.

I feel a measure of desperation to prove myself to myself. I hate to believe I have a creative destiny and then discover I am just another leaf on a tree. I grow, maybe something feeds off of me, then I dry up and perish, indistinguishable from countless others. Maybe I can get picked up and pressed between the pages of some lasting history. Perhaps I am sick with delusions of grandeur. But, even that can be entertaining to read about…

I am moving forward. Whether to my own destruction or self-discovery, only time will tell.