Lee, I’m delighted that this post has inspired on your new pastel journey! Thank you for sharing your story. (Love that you always go to painting pears – me too!). I hope your health allows you to get to your pastels soon!

Thank you so much Gail. 💞
Can’t wait to get into my studio to start my Hadeda Ibis series

Thank you so much Melanie for sharing your own experiences with not only painting series but also your creative process. I’m sooooo happy that these posts are motivating and encouraging you. I LOVE that you go to your studio, no matter how you feel. I find just being there makes me feel good. And often, being there means something will happen, no matter how small.

I’m glad you’ve been able to shift to process rather than result. I know this is difficult when there’s a specific painting to be done – like your pet portrait gift!! So ahhhh, breathe, and welcome in the creative muse and then just let go and paint. I know I know, easier said than done!

Oh my goodness, YES Nancy! So well put! I love that metaphor of peeling away…because it is so like that when you allow yourself the time and effort to commit to a number of paintings that build one from the next. As you say (and I’ve just experienced that with a new set of pastel painting experiments!), often you find your way to the heart of it all by the final piece.
Thank you!

Sonia, thank you so much for sharing your experience of this magic of working in a series! (For my English-speaking readers to appreciate your words, with the help of Google Translate please find them below.) I LOVE that you found a way to move past the frustration you experienced while working on a painting you so wanted to do. And after all the small paintings you’ve done, why not set up two or three versions of the painting you want to do, maybe one in oil and another in pastel and the third in…charcoal perhaps? That way, you have more chances to learn AND have a wonderful outcome (or three!).

Sonia, ¡muchas gracias por compartir tu experiencia de esta magia de trabajar en una serie! (Para que mis lectores de habla inglesa aprecien tus palabras, con la ayuda de Google Translate, encuéntralas a continuación). ME ENCANTA que hayas encontrado una manera de superar la frustración que experimentaste mientras trabajabas en una pintura que tanto deseabas hacer. Y después de todos los pequeños cuadros que has hecho, ¿por qué no creas dos o tres versiones del cuadro que quieres hacer, tal vez una al óleo, otra al pastel y la tercera a… carboncillo tal vez? De esa manera, tendrá más oportunidades de aprender Y de obtener un resultado maravilloso (¡o tres!).

Magnificent post. It reflects word for word the feeling that I experienced in the month of August. For two weeks I have taken up a pastel painting abandoned a year and a half ago. The challenge was too ambitious. It is the image of my daughter diving under the crystal clear waters of a cenote in Yucatan, Mexico. The bright white reflections on his body overwhelmed me and I have abandoned him again after two weeks of painting, erasing and redoing without success. A frustration that I overcame in the exact way you describe. I took the oil and decided to paint small fruit projects: a banana, a pear, an apple… The result is revealing, uplifting, motivating… as you express in your publication. I could not agree more.
Congratulations on your blog and your work, which I have been following for a long time. Sorry to write this in Spanish, I hope Google will help you translate it. Greetings from Spain.

Firstly Hooray for today- after that post I spent each day in studio 1st thing. The first day I felt faint after half an hour but I wasn’t discouraged….  my goal was to show up each day despite how I felt and I had achieved that. (I gave myself permission to rest and take care of health.) I invited God to come energise me each day too. Thank you for that post Gail, I go to looking forward to studio time, I wake up itching to get into studio and some days my desire to paint got me back into studio for short bursts.

Yes I have worked in a series before, I wanted to paint a pet portrait for a friend and had 5 in mind and too little time. I found I managed more time in studio, if I felt stuck or overwhelmed I could procrastinate productively by switching between projects. I was really happy with 2 the 3rd was OK and the other 2 got as far as underpainting. The 2nd painting was better than the first the 3rd one just needed more a few more days with me.

Since then I’ve set up my desk with 2 easels so I can escape into a 2nd project if I want to give myself a confidence boost I think it works for me. The all your eggs in 1 basket kind of painting is stressful.

I’ve also done a study of a Robin in different media when I was trying to decide which medium would work best for me.

Thank you for this perfectly timed encouragement- I have so much I want to paint that I generally end up all over the place and not painting at all or wanting to choose the best of each. These posts have encouraged me – my next goal is to spend time sketching birds from life again (superfast) and having 2 or 3 studio paintings from photo reference (once I finish the poor pet portrait that has sat on my easel alone in my studio for months).

This past week I could feel the enjoyment and I need to get this pet portrait gift right but my focus has shifted to enjoying the process and not hyperfocussing on outcome. I even did a little bit of reorganising in studio.

Thank you so much Gail for motivating me to get going again and letting go of expectations.