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This painting was an attempt to translate my doodling style into a painting. At the time, my doodles largely consisted of basic geometric forms (prisms, spheres, etc.) combined with blocky faces/bodies. I had the idea to make a tree where the branches/leaves are done in this doodle style. At the time, I was spending countless hours drawing during the Covid lockdowns, but I hadn’t made any paintings in a while. During that period, my drawing/doodling style shifted dramatically, and I wanted to bring this new style to my paintings … this turned out to be a mistake.
I started out by drawing the design directly on the canvas, then I painted it in. This ended up an extremely tedious and unenjoyable process. It took me way longer than it needed to, and it was very frustrating at every step. What was super to easy to draw (the design probably only took 10 minutes), ended up being extremely difficult to paint. Trying to get smooth gradients and precise lines with acrylic paints is very difficult – with pencil, its trivial. Furthermore, it felt like there was no creativity involved in the painting process – it felt like a paint-by-numbers coloring book. As a result of this negative experience, I completely shifted my creative practice/philosophy.
Today, I approach every medium differently. My workflow is very different for acrylics vs. watercolor vs. charcoal vs. ink. As a result, my style changes across different media. I try to work with the medium, letting it guide me, instead of fighting against it. Certain styles are best done in watercolor, others are best done in ink – it’s a waste of time and effort to make watercolors behave like a pen when you can just use a pen. I also never do an underdrawing for my paintings anymore – I sometimes do an underpainting, but never an underdrawing. This makes every step of the painting process creative, and prevent it from ever feeling like I’m just filling in a paint-by-numbers design.
Overall, I think the painting turned out okay – it’s not one of my favorites, but I’m very grateful for what it taught me.