Saturday, July 23rd
I finally sat down at my desk to work on a special painting.
My muse
My friend Erum is often my muse.
With her long black hair, olive colored skin and self confidence, she’s very much the opposite of me.
I am blonde, pale and shy. I have to force myself to have confidence but she exudes it!
I usually don’t sit down with the idea of painting her, but often find that I have.
I’ve painted her as a mermaid, at brunch with friends, in a long red dress with knee length hair…
The original painting
A couple years ago, when I did the painting of a her in the long red dress, she causally mentioned that she would love for me to make her an identical painting and add an Eiffle Tower into the painting.
I thought it was a great idea and I started thinking about doing it but never got around to it.
Fast forward a couple years and I still haven’t gotten the painting done😔 but she still loves the original so much, that on vacation in Greece she did a photoshoot in a red dress that looked extraordinarily like the original painting I did.
And since then, she’s gotten a tattoo of it as well…
so today, I am going to sit down and get the painting done.
Getting past procrastination
It occurred to me a couple weeks go that I was simply procrastinating but I couldn’t tell you why.
Finally today, I put a name to it… fear.
And I asked myself, what am I so afraid of?
Because, after all, what it procrastination?
It is anxiety.
And what’s anxiety?
It’s fear.
So, while I had legitimate excuses, like not knowing what paints I used when I painted the original, those excuses were just masking fears.
So…What was I so afraid of??
And I realized that I was afraid the new painting would not be as good as the original.
I was also afraid of sketching and painting the Eiffle Tower, which is just silly because I’ve sketched and painted it many times.
In fact, the very first painting I ever sold was an Eiffle Tower painting.
I was also afraid that my new painting would not live up to my own and Erum’s expectations.
With these questions answered, it was much easier to sit down and actually get started!
In the end, I actually love the new painting even more than the original!
