Self Portrait Work In Progress

100 Day Project Day 9

Today was a perfect art day, I was buzzing about doing All The Art. It was one of those days where I felt like I was on top of my game. I unwrapped two canvases and got my gesso layers on. They do come with the claim that they are ready-primed, but I like the ritual of putting my own layers on. I also primed some canvas paper. So I had three surfaces rotating, doing gesso layers, and I was also being super efficient with some intermittent housework, because I’m that good.

I’m not really.

I decided that one of the canvases is going to be used for a painting submission, and I am going to do a self-portrait. This is all very bold and optimistic. I was feeling very bold and optimistic this morning, and I decided that the best time to start acting on the bright idea was the minute after I had it, so I got stuck in printing out a copy of one of my sketches to see how it would look on one of the canvases, and decided to paint that canvas turquoise for the first layer.

For this piece I am not aiming for a perfect portrait, and I am definitely not aiming for a win in the competition, and aiming for either of these things would be setting myself up for disappointment. What I am aiming for is a finished painting in a larger size than I am comfortable with, and to submit it to an upcoming artist call. I know which deadline I am aiming for, but I am not sure of the timeframe, because February did not act the same way as January, and these dates keep coming rushing towards me. For now I am aiming for completing the painting, then submitting it to an artist call.

So there I was buzzing about with canvases getting started, and all sorts of ideas flowing, and feeling like today was going to be a really good day, and then I noticed the bathroom mirror was all steamed up, and it suddenly dawned on me that in my fast-moving efficiency I had set the water running to fill the sink, gotten caught up in all the art things, and promptly forgotten about the sink, and the water.

It wasn’t just the art and ideas that were flowing, I can tell you that.

The bathroom floor was swimming, and the kitchen ceiling directly below was not the worst it could have been, but it was dripping away in one corner quite the thing.

I suppose adulthood is having a vague idea what to do when some gype floods two rooms of your house. Me being said gype.

It’s fine. After I had thrown old dog blankets and towels everywhere – never throw those things out – I organised for a dehumidifier to be rented, because better safe than sorry. I won’t be buying any art supplies this month. Ooops. Then I cried, because there just hadn’t been quite enough bloody water gushing around.

Once I got to the point that there was nothing else I could do, I decided to do some painting, to try and calm myself down. I played around with turquoise, raw umber, naples yellow and buff titanium and blocked in my profile, based on the drawing I did a few days ago.

I really don’t know if this will be finished for my tentative deadline, but I do know I need to have a title for the painting, and as I was painting this underlayer I decided this is ‘Self Portrait While The Kitchen Ceiling Floods.’

Trying not to stress out,

Til the morn,

Suzanne