Not enough hours in the day

I am a working fool, even on 4 or so hours of sleep. Ugh. I'm working on 4 pieces at once so I thought I'd share the beginning stages and then the finished product a little later this or next week. Plus, if I post pictures of what I'm working on, my mind can SEE that I'm working.

I am driven. Always have been. I do very, very, very much enjoy the journey of painting each piece, but the thrill of finishing-and liking a particular work? Too great. And so when I have many things going at once, (because oils, they sometimes need a few days to dry before I pounce on them again) I begin to feel as if I will NEVER FINISH ANYTHING, ever again. Because I'm all calm and not dramatic at all.

I have an insane fondness for all chickeny things. (I am allowed to make words up as I need them.) And yet I have no chickens. Sigh. I grew up with chickens and I think they're just wonderful. When we sell our Albuquerque house and move to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where we'll be retiring...then I'll have chickens. Until then, I'll paint chickeny things.

This is a doorway. To what? You'll have to wait and see. It's a cool surprise. I really like this painting thus far, even if it is just at the toning stage.


Lastly, the bench in the meditation garden at Ghost Ranch.

Today, just to be at the peak of insanity, I'm preparing 9 more small canvases. I love oil painting but it doesn't work for my incredibly low patience levels. Watercolors let me work on them from morning till night until I'm done with a piece.

Then why do I work on seven watercolors at once? See patience thing up above. Also, I get bored and frustrated and tend to get lost in a piece until I can no longer see the forest for the trees, to use a cliche that probably came from an artist, or it should have. Working on multiple things keeps me at a distance. When I get tired or start to overwork a painting or reach a point where things aren't working out, I shift to a different piece and feel fresh and ready again.

I used to do one piece at a time, start to finish, no matter how long it took. In fact I always have...until just a few months ago. I started to feel that, when I was working on a really detailed painting, that I had to drag myself to the easel. I much prefer this way of working. There are so many fun things to play with that I just bound out of bed every day. So this works for me and my bizarre need to do everything at once, 24 hours a day.

And now I must return to my madness. Talk amongst yourselves.