For an embarrassingly long time now I have been unable to get to work on a new painting. The reasons for this are obscure, and I toggle between several of them. I have not spotted anything to paint. (Partly true, but insufficient.) I’m afraid to fail. (Well, that would be true if I could focus on a subject clearly enough to have formed an idea of what it might mean to succeed.) I’ve been distracted by the preparations needed in order to move house, to which we are now committed in principle. (That has to be, if I’m honest, an excuse rather than a reason.) Objectively speaking I am probably to some degree depressed. (OK: but I fail to see the connection.)
I have been motivated by the weekly life-drawing classes I attend, but I am worried as to whether to turn this into an extended interest might seem a bit perverse … although nobody said that about Degas. Anyway, I would have to pay a model.
The portrait of my friend’s dog turned out quite well, so maybe that is a direction I ought to take. If I were to declare publicly some target, could it be the case that I would feel compelled to do something, just in order to avoid the shame of having chickened out?
I’ll let you know.