Work in progress- Day 1 "Work past the ugly"

My friend Sunny Carvalho took a class once from a woman who kept reminding her students that "ya gotta work past the ugly." That has become my mantra because most paintings, especially the ones that turn out well, have at least one point where you look at them and go, "What am I doing? This looks terrible!" As visual artists, I think it's really easy to immediately cast a work of art aside when it gets to that stage, whether it's because we're afraid to proceed, embarrassed for others to see the ugly stage, or because we don't know that even the most beautiful of swans has to spend some time as an ugly duckling.

I started a new painting today and currently, it looks pretty awful. I've come to expect that, though. However, its ugliness inspired me to share the many life phases of my paintings with you. So, here it goes!

Day 1: I drew an outline in pencil of where the main objects and reflections of the painting would be, however I didn't take a picture (it probably wouldn't have shown up anyway). So, we'll skip just to the painting part. I didn't quite finish the first coat, but above is what I got done today.

Not lookin' great, huh? The prettiest part of the painting currently is the copper which has yet to be painted. Be patient, though. It'll get there. I'll be posting in-progress pictures of the painting in the next few posts and we'll see how it turns out. In the meantime, take it easy on yourselves. If you're working on something that just doesn't seem to be flowing, remember, "Ya gotta work past the ugly."