Second Floor Challenge #4: Circles

Thanks so much for all of your titles and story interpretations on yesterday's post!  I read all the comments with much joy.  And you made me see things in the painting that I hadn't previously noticed.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  And now to today's post...

Today is the fourth Second Floor challenge!  Are you ready to take it to the second floor?  What does that mean?  It means trying something vastly out of your comfort zone.  Doing something that might not work.  Experimenting with a crazy idea.  It's all about pushing yourself.  If it works, awesome.  If it doesn't work, awesome!

The challenge this time around is to create something inspired by circles.  Whatever that means to you or however it inspires you.  The prompt is simply meant to get you started.  The level of challenge you aim for is entirely internal and up to you.

Click here to see what Nat did.

As for me, I had a bit of a paint party!

Just a friendly PSA: If you protect your surfaces, you can paint anywhere and it will make you feel a bit more free as you work.  We have a tiny dining nook in our apartment.  I push the table out of the way and cover it with an old painty tablecloth.  Then I cover the floor with a drop cloth.  This way I can paint freely and never have to think about if I'm making too big a mess.  (Though I will admit that I have caught my husband's golf clubs -- see the case, standing in the corner -- with a splash of paint before.  Shhhh.  I don't think he's noticed.)

I started with some circles...

...and then built it up into something kind of abstract and whimsical:

It's kind of cool AND it contains one of my all-time favorite motifs: a pie chart.  But I wanted to take this painting to the Second Floor.

So I took a deep breath.

And I painted in a figure.

And I'm so very glad that I did.

I call this painting "Boy with Green Tie."  A very classical title for a very un-classical painting.

Taking the risk of "ruining" the previous painting was so worth it because this painting is super close to what I envisioned in my head.  And that happens very rarely -- at least to me.

Here's what I'm taking away from this challenge:

• Even when I'm not going for realistic, I create more interesting faces when I work from a photograph of an actual person rather than my imagination.
• Keep going.  It's a lesson I learn over and over and over again.  Maybe I'm not that smart because it is a lesson that I just keep needing to learn and that I'm trying to internalize.  I get scared every time a painting doesn't look good.  Keep going.  I get scared when I have an idea and I'm not sure if it's going to work and I don't want to ruin what I have.  Keep going.  I think "keep going" is becoming quite a mantra of mine.
• I played more with mixing my own colors rather than going straight from the paint tube every time.  I like it.  I think the colors are more complicated and interesting.  Must do more of that.
• I need more brushes.  I feel like I have a thousand brushes, yet never the one I seem to be looking for.  Guess this means I have to go to the art supply store. Oh, well.  It's a tough life....
• I want to explore this kind of painting a lot more.  A lot more.  Something is jangling inside my head and ideas are just starting to roll in.  I feel like I'm at the very tip of the iceberg.  There's something more, something really exciting to me, something mysterious at the end of this tunnel and I am bound and determined to discover it!

Finally, I thought you might like to see the painting hanging in my apartment:

If you'd like to leave a link showing off what you did in response to this challenge, here's the linky list:

Thanks for stopping by!