Ohhhh that’s a great sharing Valerie! Wonderful that you heard that from Juliette and still keep it in mind as you paint. Thanks again for sharing it with us!

Janice, I love that you shared this! I know exactly what you mean about the start – This is going to be easy! And then, its not. So yay to you pushing through – that’s often where the magic can happen!

Hi Michael, Thanks so much for sharing your own frustrations when working on a piece. I think its reasurring to all of us when we know other artists face the same problems and conundrums!! I hope the cows were inserted successfully – do let us know.
And obviously my batteries must have run out as I totally missed your comment until now 🙈 Better late than never I hope!
Thank you for your appreciation – warms my heart and energizes those batteries!!
Gail

Yep!
I think the messy middle is the part where it looks like there’s no way it will come together and there is a tendency to quit too early. And then there’s the end where the tendency is to overwork, to not leave the painting alone, to fiddle faddle 🙋‍♀️ I hear ya Rhonda!!

Hey Susie, love hearing this! Yeah, we just need to push through that ugh-y middle part.

And you are so right about painting on location. Energy flags and it’s time to quit. And then as you say, what we find, sometimes to our surprise, is there’s hardly anything else to do to a painting when we may have thought it needed so much more.

The great thing about painting from life outdoors is that I get tired and have to stop. At that point I am thinking I have about ten things to finish on my painting but when I get it home I realize that I only have to add one or two accent marks. One of our biggest problems as artists is over finishing.
Susie Q

Yes – the ugly stage! It’s good you know exactly when it happens and can move through it. That comes from experience and paying attention 😁