In Hindsight

I know you're going to read this and think I'm crazy, but most of the time when I finish a painting, I generally won't like it. I have this inability to see it objectively and I feel like my guts are falling out every time I look. Now I bet you're saying "Well if she hates her work so much why does she put her paintings up on her blog/facebook/instagram/tumblr/insert social media platform here?" 

Allow me to assure you, I like my work... in hindsight. This can be a frustrating affliction as it means that in my head, nothing I am doing presently is ever any good and everything I did before was cooler than anything I could muster up now. 

The 52 portrait project has been really good for this though, because most of the time I paint Casper's portrait on the Friday or Saturday and it goes online before "hindsight" kicks in. This is an uncomfortable feeling, I feel exposed like, well, my guts are falling out and everyone can see.

The painting above is such a good example of this, It is a discarded study from the bath portrait that I absolutely HATED until I saw it about an hour ago in my photo library. I just can't believe it is the same picture. I love it now.

My motivation comes from wanting to move forward, make something better than the last, to document and save, to work it out. It takes me a few weeks to see my work properly. Often I have to put it away and not look for a while but when I look again, the image surprises me. I'm glad to be able to share my work with people through my blog, it makes me uncomfortable and I've just realised that's a good thing.