Monday, December 20, 2010

Finishing a painting

Well, my painting class is finished, and I've embarked on a wild and wonderful relationship with my sweet man. I wanted to post the painting I did after being inspired by a weekend away with him, so here it is.
It's a bit too green, because I shot the photo indoors. I did this basically in about 4 hours, with my big 2-inch housepainting brush.

Now I want to frame this and all my others. My sweet man is going to make frames. Framing something helps to bring it together, to keep parts from going off into space. I've never bothered before, but I'm starting to respect my work more, and so am seeing the value of finishing a painting--bringing it to a sense of completion by both actually painting it to the point where it no longer "speaks" to me, and by framing it.

So while I have more paintings I'd like to post here, none of them are quite finished. That bugs me. There's something very different about hanging a work of art that will live where you hang it and hanging a work of art that is only temporarily stored there, awaiting the whim of the maker to change into some yet unknown product. It gives my home a sense of impermanence--as if I'll up and walk away someday soon and re-make my life yet again.