So as cliche as this sounds I never really got the phrase, "Trust the process" 'till I started Drawing II and now Oil Painting. Working with chalk pastels was a struggle. Working on art on a large scale with any medium is a struggle because you have got to have confidence in what you're doing, you have got to commit. You have to go all the way with those darkest darks. While also leaving those lightest lights untouched. There was a critique (all the students+professor gives feedback) where I said something along the lines of I was having trouble committing with the chalk pastels until I got the colors exactly right. One of the other students told me to trust myself, that she sat at the easel next to mine and she could never get my process. It looked like I had no idea what I was doing, but it always ended up looking fantastic. There's one thing she didn't know, when I looked like I had no idea what I was doing, well I really had no idea what I was doing. It was one touch of burnt stick at a time trusting my eyes to see what they're supposed to and as I've trained them to and translate that to my brain and then have my arm put that down on paper. It was trust in the things I've learned, trust in the practice. It's true.
I feel like that's my life. I'm making it up as I go along having no clue if what I'm doing is "right" or wrong. Trusting the process. Trusting that somehow the things my loved ones, my experiences, my God have taught me will end in some fantastic finished work. Will end in Shalom.
Also when people say value the process vs product, is that a little like the concept of God's kingdom come here and now?
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