Faith and perseverance

Lessons from the easel: today, while working on an alla prima portrait that started really bad, I started thinking how in painting, as in life there are two necessary elements to achieve something: faith and perseverance. The first one (and I am not talking about religious faith specifically) keeps us going when things seem odd (like the first layers of my painting today). Then perseverance keeps us going. They both need each other in the same way cars (traditional cars, at least) need electricity to start and gas to keep them moving. Thanks to both I did not wipe down the painting, something I am glad I didn't. And then, when I got home, I found out that a water bottle rolled all through the panel and ruined it, which taught me that even with faith and perseverance sometimes the results may end up being different than what we expected...and that is OK.

originally written 1/17/14