revealing rest

What do you do once the big reveal is over? How do you maintain the momentum? How do you manage expectations, from both the self and from outsiders?

These are the things I’m pondering this week as I update my sketches and works in progress. There’s been a flurry of new ideas of late, and I’m working on developing each of them. Trying to stay present in the process, rather than worrying over meeting arbitrary deadlines.

Right now my biggest concern is whether I’m avoiding the painting when I should be painting. I have several work-ups ready to begin in paints, and yet I stare at the white canvas, unready to commit. At first I thought that I hadn’t fully developed my ideas yet. That I needed more iterations, more hacking away in oil pastels. But the more I worked the ideas in pastels, the further from the truth they felt. So…I’ve let them rest. I’m letting the canvas rest. Letting the colors rest and swirl in my mind, waiting. I’m close, I can feel the paintings waking up.

It’s almost time.

And good thing, too. Because the ideas just keep coming. Trying to sort out how to group, how to make sense, how to work with the explosion of concepts that need and want to make their way out into existence.

Today was a good day for ideas. Hopefully soon, it’ll be a good day to paint.