The Final Stretch

I Can’t even believe it myself. The last time I posted on this blog, was in March of this year, and that was because I thought I was just about to finish this painting, this Bullfighter. But it wasn’t like that. A lot of things came up, and little by little I started to drift away from getting to finish the painting, and before I knew it, I had completely stopped painting. Excuses? …I could blame everything and everybody for this. Too much work, my kids’ homework, too tired, etc., etc. , etc… but the truth is that I’m the only one to blame. No excuses. I believe that if you really want to do something, you can.

My painting stands in my studio, that would be in my dining room. Every day I would see this Bullfighter and I would ask myself when would I finish it. My wife and my kids would also ask the question …WHEN?! …man, I’m even ashamed when I remember that I started this painting on December 24th of last year (2008) …that’s about a whole year! …a whole year!

But now I can say I’m back. I can say I’m on the final stretch. This is the third weekend I’ve been painting. Better put, this is the third weekend I’ve been finishing it. I say “finishing it” because I really feel it that way. The time I’ve spent painting during these days has grown, and that’s a good sign. I been getting more involved again with the smell of the oil paint, and I’ve been getting more involved again with the thickness that I feel when the brush travels from one side to the other leaving a beautiful track of color. When I’m painting, I’ve begun to feel again that pleasure I feel every time I take two or three steps back to see the whole painting, the complete image, and I like what I see.

But it ain’t all pleasure. I paint by instinct. I wasn’t artistically educated. I paint what I like, because I like it, and how I like it. I paint the way I think it should be, the way my “gut” tells me how, or without knowing how it should be. That’s why the way I paint takes me through a world filled with situations and emotions, frustration, pride, anxiety, sadness, happiness, ignorance, discovery, creativity, satisfaction, rush, calm, patience, impatience. May be if I really knew how painting should be done, my experience wouldn’t be so chaotic.

But to be honest with you, and myself, I would like to keep that “chaos” alive. I believe that the end of a chaos is always something positive, a great satisfaction. May be is that challenge of accomplishing something without really knowing how, is what keeps me painting. And it is also my curiosity of finding out how the painting will look when finished.

Let’s stop this complicated “personal philosophy ” of mine. Two days ago was the 25th anniversary of the death of the bullfighter “Paquirri”. If you’ve read my previous posting on this blog, you would know that this painting is inspired by the Bullfighter I just mentioned, a bullfighter I had the chance to meet and shake hands with when I was a child, he was wearing a “suit of lights” I’m painting as I remember it.

I still have a lot of painting to do. Lots of details to finish up. But I wanted to share with you how this Bullfighter is coming along. I selected three important phases of the process, it was hard because each step is as important, but I selected the three phases that can show you the process the best.

Peace.