Elephantitis

I have had so much trouble with this elephant painting. The irony is that my difficulties are not viewable because they occur only in my head. I have watched videos online of others painting elephants and take note of their techniques. But mostly I have sat, staring at my work, visualizing different ways of proceeding. Some of my trouble has been that I like the background and don’t want to have to start over if I ruin the elephant. (That is always a bad way of thinking.) And my color choices were an issue. I had been saving these colors for a long time. I liked how they bleed out with water and was anxious to use them.  

While pondering these things I painted #7, the pigs. Now I am back working on the elephant, inch by inch. It has been such slow going that I have taken no photos. I paint a little, wait for it to dry and then  look at it in a mirror…and repeat.