JOSHUA ELEK: WATERCOLORS

It’s all part of the journey


I have to remind myself over and over… you are only a year and a half into this. I’m a sophomore in high school… I should expect to paint like I’m sixteen.

I have been running into a slew Of failed painting again. I’m not sure why exactly. For some reason I’m no where near as down on myself right now as I usually am when I’m struggling. Usually, after the third or fourth failed painting, I get really disappointed. Maybe it’s because it’s New Years. Maybe my anti depressants are working. Maybe both. Who knows. All I know is right now, I’m churning through paper pretty quickly, and I’m not getting any results I’m proud of. Because I want this blog to be an inspiration to beginners like me, I won’t shy away from airing my dirt laundry. So, here… a series of recent failed paintings—most of which I didn’t bother to finish. Because failure is a step toward success.

I tried to paint an abstract painting, and ended up trying to make it look like space. It looks more like cat puke in LSD.
I tried something new with masking fluid, it was working sort of, until I kept monkeying around with it.
Here I was practicing cars and figures.
Believe it or not, this was going to be an attempt at a photo realistic painting of a bird. I didn’t bother to finish it.
This was an attempt to paint a photo I took off Murray Hill, AKA “Little Italy” in Cleveland.
This was an attempt to paint a photo I took of a path near a farm in Ohio.
This was the second attempt at that same photo.
This is me trying desperately to just get something to work… it didn’t.

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