I hate when I lose the magic of a piece!

So I have had a couple of months to just paint. Painting for myself on the weekends and during the week painting for my online workshops. I got back from Art Unraveled in August which was my first time and I loved the venue and can't wait to go back next year...but I digress. I seem to have a couple of styles. I love painting whimsical girls in splashy watercolors and I was really pleased with this little one.

She is painted on a fabric book cover. I always love to come back to this playful way of painting. I love drawing and love to draw on top of these watercolor portraits adding bits of collage.

I am working on an upcoming online class "A date with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. This is a painting I painted at the beginning of the year when the idea first came to me.

This is my interpretation of a Dante Rossetti painting. I am learning so much about this time period.

Here is my 2nd piece for the class. I first drew a picture of the lovely Jane Morris (wife of William Morris) and then made an image transfer to use as my underpainting. I thought it appropriate to design my version of a William Morris print and used that as wallpaper behind the figure.

O.k.so far so good! I am on a roll and everything is going great and then...........

I found this portrait by the incredible photographer at that time who worked with some of the same models as the Pre-Raphaelites, Julia Margaret Cameron. Google her work, she photographed the most incredible portraits. So I start painting and I like what I am doing.

I really wish I would have stopped here because I loved her expression, I loved the looseness and the unfinished look of the piece, but I thought I better get into some smoothing out and glazing and this is what happened

It became too smooth and I hated the glazing. I think it made it look dirty. I do love the background and the hint of a backyard with trees. I stopped filming for this class at this stage because the class was getting way too long. I had it sitting in my studio for a couple of days,and the first image I created haunted me and I wanted to get back to that place so yes, she called to me and wouldn't let me go till 8 hours later! I finally surrendered and realized I could not get back that original freshness. Note to self....do not try to copy your own paintings. It just doesn't work. That is the magic part of creating.....you have the craft and the practice going, but at some point the muse (being in the moment) takes over and THAT can not be repeated!

So this is where I surrendered! She looks haunted and exhausted which is what I was after working on her. She finally said 'Time to move on, you have learned what you needed to learn here'. So now I am exhausted but now know I can create like the first image I shared which is the direction I really want my work to go...but this painting was not going to be it. It is just a stepping stone. Heck, it really isn't about the painting....it's about the experience!