Day 1, Again

Today is Wednesday, September 15, 2021 and I am starting over, again. I just got out of the hospital today after surgery and you know the first thing I did when I got home (besides groveling to my feline overlords) was to pick up my paintbrush. I gessoed 5 canvases to get them ready for this week as I buy cheap quality and then fix it up myself for a better product. I also used a new product called Dragonfly Glaze which I was super stoked to use and thought would fit a painting I was doing for a fishermen friend very well. Unfortunately, it ruined the painting by making it look like it had been dumped in an 8-year-old's glitter well. My Painting Rules of Wisdom are not in chronological order, but today's mishap can be summed up by 2 of the rules:

1) Less is more. If you don't like the look of it, stop trying to tweak it. Walk away, have a beer, whatever, but do something totally different to get it out of your mind so that when you go back, you have fresh eyes. Accept that even with fresh eyes, there might not be anything you can do to improve it. Don't worry about it. NOBODY gets it right every time, all the time. Don't waste time making suck, suckier.

2) Always test a product. I purchased dragonfly glaze based only on some reviews that I had read on art store comments. Which means I didn't do my research. My bad. So, my fisherman friend who turns 49 tomorrow will be getting a glittery 9 year old girl's painting instead of a cool dark underwater oasis painting. I even added a second coat of the glaze to try to make it better. Ugh. Where is that banging my head against a wall emoji? While I appreciate trying to work on a budget which I definitely am doing myself, I look back at the 4 weeks of work I did to finish the painting which I felt was probably my best work to date as totally wasted in the few hours of the 'Dragon Glaze Incident' as it shall be known henceforth. 'Dragon Glaze Incident = DGI. Try saying those letter sounds together: ' Duh-guh-eeee'. Yep, that about sums it up: a guttural choking sound. *sigh*.