Gravestone and Dried Flower

If 1863 is the best painting I've done, then this is very likely the worst.Although I tried to follow my way in, it hasn't worked out. I placed it on an A-frame stand on the side window ledge as a reminder of what not to do. Moreover, I decided that I'd done too much, pushing myself to paint each week. I think I wasn't really sure I wanted to paint this subject, nice though it sat up for me in the photo. I set up to paint in landscape, when the image is portrait. I carried on, squashing the image, detracting from the dried hydrangea. Then, I forgot to take a picture of the grounding. I ploughed on. Something will come out of it. 

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After only a little over an hour, it was finished. It was a mess, much like my eleven year old self would do. It should go in the bin, but I resisted. The next day, I thought I liked the pastel contrasting colours of blue and green. They reminded me of simple looking paintings by  Gaugin. That made me smile. Still, the time had come to take a break from painting. It looked like I had learned nothing about painting during the past two years. I needed a rest, perhaps, time to study. I forgot about the painting, ignoring it as I walked past. It would not appear on this website.

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Why? Hadn't I painted one of my best ever the previous week? This was humiliating. Humiliating..?!? 

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Then, last week, as I lay on the couch for my after lunch nap, I realised I was looking at the painting and beginning to think...oh, no!...that's not so bad, you know. Was the matter less the painting and more the posting? It's fine to show the good stuff, but how about the bad? I recalled I'd started posting as a teacher, not an artist. Maybe, my efforts would stimulate you to try. Where was my pride now?  And then, I noticed I'd not even painted the dried flower. That was a bad day.

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Yet, it might turn out to be one of the most important in my development as an artist. Meeting a friend for a coffee in the Palm House in Sefton Park this morning, I also appreciated that one of the two women on the next table was very likely the artist, who had created knitted ruffs around the necks of some of the historical statues outside. It was her, I checked. My partner really liked the ruffs. She even went and found the programme from last year on Sky Arts. She is an artist, a painter. 'And you?', she asked me. 'Are you an artist?' I am! I am a beginner painter.'