#54: Stabbing the Painting with Creativity

A week ago, I wrote about starting colour on my portrait What I was and what I’ve become — and how I was ready to move beyond the black and white foundation into something more dimensional, more expressive, more alive.

Since then… I’ve started. Properly.

And I’ll be honest: it’s been scary.

The Black and White Version Could Have Been “Done”

The strangest part is that the portrait already worked in black and white. It could have been finished. It could have been submitted. It had that crispness and technical solidity that I know I’m capable of. It had detail. Control. Structure.

There was a version of this painting where I could have stopped and felt safe. But I didn’t want safe.

I wanted growth.

So I carried on.

Colour Feels Like a Risk

Adding colour to a black and white portrait is a weird kind of push and pull. Every time I lay down paint, it feels like I’m taking something away. Like I’m sacrificing detail. Softening edges. Losing precision.

Sometimes it feels like I’m ruining it.

And yet, the whole point of this painting was to become something more expressive — to loosen up and let it breathe. The irony is that the very thing I’m trying to achieve feels, in the moment, like I’m attacking the piece.

I genuinely had the thought this week that it’s like I’m stabbing the painting with creativity.

Not destroying it… but puncturing its perfection.

Interrupting it.

Making it riskier.

And I hate how much that’s exactly what it needs.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Progress hasn’t felt smooth. It’s been more like:

• make a bold move

• panic

• “fix” it

• make another move

• panic again

• step back

• realise the first move wasn’t the disaster I thought it was

It’s exhausting in a way that black and white drawing rarely is. With black and white, I know where I stand. I know how to bring it back. With paint, once it’s there, it’s there. It has weight. It has permanence. Even when it’s thin. Even when it’s a glaze.

Colour feels like commitment.

Friday: I Hit the Wall

By Friday I hit a point where I genuinely couldn’t look at it properly anymore. Not because it was objectively terrible, but because my brain was stuck in this hyper-critical mode where all I could see was:

• mistakes

• awkward sections

• areas that didn’t work

• places I needed to fix

• bits that felt “wrong”

I went home for the weekend and tried not to look at the photos on my phone because every time I did, my stomach dropped. I didn’t see the painting. I saw a list of problems.

It’s amazing how quickly your mind can turn a work-in-progress into evidence that you’re failing.

Monday: Fresh Eyes, Different Painting

And then today happened.

I came in on Monday and felt different. The panic had faded a bit. The noise in my head had lowered. I stood in front of the canvas again and… it looked completely different to how it looked on Friday.

Not because the painting physically changed.

Because I did.

It’s one of the strangest things about making art: time away doesn’t just rest your hand — it resets your eyes. The painting I couldn’t stand to look at a few days ago suddenly looked full of potential again. The decisions I regretted didn’t seem so dramatic. The “damage” wasn’t damage at all. It was movement.

It was the painting becoming something.

Maybe This Is the Whole Point

Maybe this is what growth in art actually looks like.

Not a clean climb upwards. More like a wrestle. A push and pull between control and expression.

A constant negotiation between what I know I can do and what I’m trying to learn how to do.

And maybe it’s supposed to feel uncomfortable, because if it didn’t, I’d just be repeating myself forever.

Back in the Fight

So I’m back in it this week. Still scared. Still uncertain. Still trying to keep the painting alive without suffocating it with perfection.

But I’m also excited again.

Because I can see it now — I can see what it could become.

And if it takes a few more “two steps forward, one step back” days to get there… then that’s fine.

That’s painting.

.M.

Be real.

Make art.

If you’d like to learn more about my creative process or see my latest work, feel free to reach out or check out the rest of my website.