At times, I get stuck in how I've always created a scene. When I finish, it doesn't feel like me anymore. It feels like an earlier version of me.

Let me explain. I used to paint mountains all the time. They were peaceful, with sweeping foregrounds of gentle slopes in gouache and watercolor. When I switched to acrylic paint, I yearned to let the inner child in me release onto canvas, exploding with her energetic lust for life. Those peaceful scenes were too quiet. I began to introduce larger movement and bigger color into my work. I moved from painting mountains to painting closer scenes, with less distance and more movement, getting "in the weeds", so to speak.

Like this one from May of this year, Dancing Light. See the energetic the brush strokes and movement within the painting?

Keeping all this energy in mind, I had an impulse to return to the mountains and paint Brokentop from a photo I took years ago. Alas, right away, I returned to the "old way" of painting, which was to say, further from the scene, and with a peaceful foreground, sweeping brushstrokes. Only a small spattering of energetic flowers hovered in the lower LH corner. It didn't mesh. It didn't feel right.

It didn't capture the energy I was after, or the gestural strokes from my Dancing Light painting.

This was simply not going to do! The trees, the foreground, the stilted feel...Nope. With my hands, I took a large amount of Cad Red Light and covered up the foreground and middle ground of the painting. Go big or go home, baybee.

I let it stew in the corner of the studio for a few days. Feeling courageous one day, I pulled out my wild child vibe and cut in and around Indian Paintbrush and Lupines in the foreground; messy, with movement, color, and contrast. I connected the mountains with the foreground by bringing the purple into the foreground, green into the mountains, and loose strokes into the rocks. I loosened up the trees, only suggesting their presence. After all, it is ALL about the Indian paintbrush!

Yesssss...feels much better now. Artwork? It isn't easy at times.

Have you had a similar problem of returning to an older style when revisiting an prior subject? Leave a comment below!

Thanks for reading. I truly appreciate you and your support and friendship.

Sarah