Eating Peaches

Ok – not really done. But I did work on it tonight. Laid out some basic color, just to get going. It’s on an 18″ by 24″ canvas. More work to do…

I am back to one of my classic struggles – what to paint. I go back and forth between what I think would sell/appeal to a buyer (although I don’t know why I’m concerned with that at this point), and what I really want to paint. Problem is, at times I’m not even sure what I want to paint. Maybe this is a subconscious link to one of my other problems I think I have…a fear of success. Or maybe it’s a bit of self-doubt thrown in. Interestingly, I ran across this post today about conquering self-doubt.

Fear of success seems kind of silly, when you think about it. Who wouldn’t want to be successful? I want to be a successful artist. But then why don’t I do it? Some of the self-help therapies suggest that fear of success might really be a fear of failure. Perhaps that’s what it is in a nutshell. Maybe I’m subconsciously afraid that if I try to become an artist, I might fail. And then it was all for naught…so why bother getting started in the first place? I think this might be the root of it all.

This sounds familiar…(especially #3)

Signs of Fear of Success and Self-Sabotage
How do you know if you’re afraid of success? Some possible signs of self-sabotage are:

3. All talk, no action. Sometimes certain behaviors look like laziness, but they reveal a fear of success. For instance, you may talk about your life dreams and goals all the time, but you watch TV every night and surf the Internet for hours every day. You never actually take practical steps or exert self-discipline to move in the direction of your goals.

Ok, enough of the self-analyzation…it’s time to paint! Tonight is the night.

But what am I going to paint?