“Self Portrait #5”

Self Portrait #5
12″ x 9″
oil on panel
©2010 Tracy Wall

I guess it’s been about a year since I did my last self portrait.  Over the course of a year, things can change (and I’m not talking about just hair style or clothes).

We all change as time goes by. I’ve been liking my painting style lately, but then I start nit-picking detail which for me takes the fun out of it.  This one is a little more detailed than I was planning, but  I’ll go with it.

My painting process goes like this: I get a painting pretty much done, but a few things just don’t sit right.  Then blip, blip, blip, a little here, a dab there, until I start to lose the expressive “feel” that it originally had. At that point it starts to look like I’m trying to paint it realistically photographically picture perfect which is not my goal.

Until I remind myself to step away from the easel.  I’m finally starting to recognize the point of diminishing returns in my painting process, and don’t continue to nag the work.

Step away and get a view of the big picture.  (Hmmmm….. literally and figuratively, how applicable in so many areas of my life!)
I keep coming back to:  Let it go.  :)

Some things will never change.  But hopefully I’ll never be stagnant.

Here’s a few previous self portraits.
How have I changed?  How have you changed?

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“Self Portrait #4” 8/2009   .  “Tracy’s Mugshot” 7/2007