. . . mixed some media

I was browsing through my flickr site and found this piece. It is one of the very first paintings I created. I painted it on an old piece of wood and textured it with tissue paper, letting some of the wood grain show through. It used to hang in my house, but honestly I don't know where it is now. I do remember it was pretty heavy, and I framed it myself (badly.) It's interesting to me to see how much (or how little) my paintings have changed in the relatively short time I've been doing this.

My mother used to tell me that everything improved with practice. This was when she was forcing me to take piano lessons. I never could play worth poop. In my first few jobs, I was a typist (back in the day before even correcting selectric typewriters). I would plug into my dictating machine (even then, it was rare to take shorthand) and the words would flow from my ears to my fingers, without stopping at my brain, for eight hours a day. Of course, I became a terrific typist. If you did anything for eight hours a day for years, wouldn't you almost have to become proficient?

Maybe I should paint for eight hours a day, but I can't. I have to step away, think about things, let the painting sit while my mind percolates, or something totally incongruous inspires me.