IT'S NOT MY FAULT!

It really isn't my fault that I forgot all about writing a blog for Friday.

It's Gini's.

She e-mailed me a really gorgeous photo of a stream in New Hampshire the other day and Thursday morning, nothing would do but I use it for one of my timed paintings.  All right.  That was my idea.  But if she hadn't sent it to me in the first place that wouldn't have happened.

See my logic?

That's why I think it's perfectly fair to blame it all on her.

So............

Here's how the day went.

I had cropped Gini's photo to a version that appealed to me and then I set my timer for one hour because I was working on a 10 x 14 canvas.

Then....off I went.

I did this.

And this.

And this.
(I hadn't really changed the color of the sky, I just took this photo in bad light.)

And then the phone rang.  It was my cousin.  We yakked and yakked and yakked and laughed.  'Cause that's what we do.  But I just kept right on painting while we yakked and laughed.

Just before the timer went off I decided it was done.

Not done RIGHT, of course, just DONE.

It looked like this.

The photo was on my computer monitor...about 12 feet away from my easel.  That explains why the painting isn't closer to the actual photo.  But for my timed paintings, that shouldn't matter at all.  The whole point is to get the basics in and to zero in on what grabbed my eye.

I sure wish I'd remembered that at the time because............

What happened next just ticks me off!

I got to looking more closely at my version of Gini's photo and started trying to make the  painting look more like that.

I wish there was a really loud, unpleasant sounding buzzer that would go off in my head when I start doing such a thing!  Or some weird appendage of my body which would start knocking me upside the head when I start doing that!!  Or some art muse, sitting on my shoulder, yelling "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE YOU DOING? " when I start doing that!!!

But I just went right ahead 'fixing' stuff that didn't need fixing until I had made quite a mess!

Next thing that happened....I hesitate to tell you about...but I will.

Remember my hubby?  The guy who got me started painting?

He hasn't  picked up a paintbrush since then and yet he came into the studio and started telling me what I needed to do about this and that in the painting.

And what did I do?

Well, I fell, face first, into a big stinky puddle of people-pleasin' poop and made some more messes!

Thanks a lot, hubby!

The more I 'fixed' the more frustrated I got...
and the more obsessed I became....
and the more rigid I got in my paint application.....
and the more frustrated I got...........

Got the picture?

See why it's all Gini's fault?

Of course, I should also let hubby share some of that blame, don't you think?

Here's what I finally wound up with before I finally got sense enough to leave it alone...for now.

I am so grateful that I feel perfectly fine about blaming my problems on other people when it suits me.

It is much easier than holding myself accountable, don't you agree?