About the Painting | Abalone

- July 2020 -

Time. So much change and growth can happen in even a short amount of it. Often going unnoticed until you look back and realize the distance you've made from then to now. What I thought was a failure two years ago is now something beautiful and meaningful to me all because I looked at it with new eyes and the fresh mindset that time has given me and chose to continue working on it.

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Abalone by Cheyenne Christensen

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well amid all that is going on in the world these days. As usual, I've been keeping to myself and the things in life that bring me joy.

Last month when I was going through my rejects/random-pile-of-unfinished-paintings looking for inspiration and hopefully a clean piece of paper to paint on, I found this horse portrait that I had abandoned (I tend to do that... whoops) over two years ago. It was from a time when I was painting quite a few horses. I hadn't painted a horse with braids in its mane before, so I was inspired to give that a try. With the help of some reference photos I carefully drew out the image that I had in my mind of a horse with a braided mane. I love colours and I had an idea for a new colour combination that I hadn't used before. It was a dark green and red-brown situation. I thought it would look cool since red and green are complimentary colours and I was in a bit of a green faze at the time. But, once I painted the first layers I realized that my colour choice wasn't doing it -- at least not for this subject matter. The horse looked rather unwell and near death (nothing wrong with painting zombie horses or the like, that's just not I had planned to make)! At that point I greatly disliked this thing I had created. The form and anatomy was good but I couldn't get passed the colours. So I put it in the pile.

I had seen it many times whilst clean/organizing, but I never wanted to do anything with it. I would just think of how much I disliked it, and then I'd put it away again. However, when I found it this time, I finally decided that I could do something with it. At that moment I didn't feel the need to make something great, I was just in the mood to explore and move paint around. So I took some left-over paint from my palette and started painting. I didn't put pressure on myself because this painting was already a reject -- if I made it worse it wouldn't matter a whole lot. That feeling of having freedom to play is so rejuvenating and healing for my artist soul!

Green was the dominate colour and I wouldn't be able to get rid of it and that was okay, but the red-brown needed to be covered and drowned out with other colours. I put some pink and violet on it and that was it! I found what the painting needed (more vibrant colours) and that happy-little-inspired-artist spark was lit! I was excited about this painting again! I don't really know how to articulate the feeling other than saying that it's bliss to be truly inspired and excited about what your are making and to see all the puzzle pieces come together. I continued to add more colours and details until it was finished and I was proud to put my name on it.

I was thinking about how it is kind of profound (to me, anyway) that I was able to give this painting a new life -- a new story. :) I was able to look at it with optimism and curiosity without attaching my previous negative feelings to it.

Every painting and creative endeavour is a learning experience for me. I think that I know something, but every artwork challenges me and shows me that I still know so little, and I'm starting to accept that with great enthusiasm.

Thank you so much for reading! It usually takes me quite a long time to finish these posts, so it means a lot to me when people read them. These blog posts are like my art-diary and writing them helps me understand my own feelings and thoughts and it forces me to figure out how articulate it. I hope someone can find something valuable in these posts. <3

Find me ~

Instagram: @art.by.cheyenne

Youtube channel: Art by Cheyenne

Facebook: Art by Cheyenne

Until next time,

- Cheyenne