The Messy Middle... where we lose confidence

My Peony Series is coming along.  I have plans to complete 15 paintings all focused on that gorgeous bloom - the peony. 

This is one of the most challenging flowers to paint simply because of the abundance of petals that you literally get lost in as you try to articulate which one goes where.  

My process, up until this point, has been to articulate the shapes using the greyscale.  This has been a really effective way to capture the details, then move to colour once that layer has dried.  There are a couple of limitations to this, the main one being time.  1) The time to create the painting increases because you are basically painting the image twice and 2) the drying time for each layer ads to the completion time of the painting. 

So I decided to venture into painting directly in colour rather than the greyscale.  To be honest, I've been a bit scared by it.  Removing a key step to my process unsettled me.  However, I just began, like I always do, putting paint on the canvas.  I'm 9 hours in with several of the hours being wasted in doubt and mixing the various shades of pink.  Can you hear the judgement when I say wasted in the previous sentence. 

Yes, judgement has been a constant companion with this change in process.  It's really no different than the judgement that I was faced with when I started the greyscale process.  So I know I've travelled this path before and it's a necessary step to the success that I have already achieved in the greys.  It's no different with colour.  Building confidence required that we do something versus just reading or wishing about it.   

One of my mentors calls it the "Messy Middle".  It sure is a messy middle.  It's a hot mess, or that's what my judgemental mind wants to tell me.  

However, the other thing I know to be true is that I can only focus on one section at a time, and I do know what I'm doing if I pay attention and listen to what my intuition is telling me needs to come next.  That's all I ever have to work with.  

As David Whyte says "Start close in."  I'll attach the poem here for you.  Start close in with the first step.  That's all we have to work with.  Just start close in.  

Start Close Inby David Whyte
Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way to begin
the conversation.
Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something
simple.
To hear
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes an
intimate
private ear
that can
really listen
to another.
Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake
that other
for your own.
Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
A David Whyte poem from
River Flow: New & Selected Poems
Many Rivers Press

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