I made a mess and I liked it!

I wanted to paint Te Awamutu ( the next town along from where I live) from the vantage point of a hillside home. The lovely owners of the house let me park in their drive and paint. It was a fabulous winters morning, perfect for painting.....but i could not resolve some issues with the scene and was becoming increasingly frustrated, so I decided to take to it with my big , rubber paint-shaper to remove the paint in the foreground and start again. BIG GUNS!!!

I scraped it off and voila.....was left with an interesting, abstract effect. I like it! I like it so much I left it just as it was and will look at it in another week and see what else I can do, if anything. I don't mind that I made a mess ( I got paint all over my sleeves, my face, my hands...everywhere ) or that it did not turn out the way I had envisaged it. Rather, I relish the new experience of what ELSE could make the scene "work" and it certainly follows my recent thoughts about abstracting detail and forms .

Te Awamutu from the hill
50 x 40 cm
oil on canvas board

You know that feeling when a word is on the tip of your tongue but you just can't remember it? You know that feeling of deja vu? You know that feeling when  someone says  something really fabulous about you but you weren't supposed to hear?  That's how I feel about painting right now. Very . Very. Frustrating/weird/ exciting.