Recently I finished this painting, titled “Wannabe”. It has been a very long time in the making, and there were points in the process, I thought I may never be able (or have the patience) to actually finish it.
I started the painting this past fall, in September or October. As (basically) always, I had mentally planned ahead, and knew exactly how I wanted the piece to turn out. At least I had a very good idea... But along the way, I came across one obstacle after another. Mainly they had to do with the face of the woman. I am not sure of the number of faces - I gave up counting, but this may be the fifth one, which ended up working for me. The other faces just weren’t right, they didn’t work with the whole feeling and expression of the piece. For a long period I left the painting in a corner, looked at it out the corner of my eye, as I worked on other things. Although it annoyed me, sitting there in the corner, I could never entirely desert it. I am not sure why this painting worked against me to this extend, I can’t remember it ever being such a long and continuously changing process before.
A few times I was very close to give up, break down the canvas and start over on the perfectly good stretchers: new motif, new story, fresh air! But I just couldn’t let the painting win. I kept going, changing, starting over, and although the painting was almost more stubborn than me, I kept going. When I finally decided that this is it - it is done, I had a mishap in my use of the final varnish, which meant that I had to make even more - unplanned - changes.
I am happy I stuck with it - I like it, and having the (numerous) half finished attempts in my mind, I know this IS it, it was the right direction to take this - indeed - very stubborn image.
