Frame completed yesterday. The painting is now framed, but ideally I need a (very large) backing board for the frame. I can't afford it.
Today, a full day tracing the large Sisyphus painting. This is close to the largest painting I can manage without upgrading certain pieces of equipment. Over 1200mm, I'd need a larger drawing board, and spend more on the Polydraw film, as it's width is 1016mm (of course, this can be the shortest side, but that is a bit wasteful, in this case I used a shorter 841mm roll, but there's not much left on that). So, 1010mm is a reasonable maximum for longest side. 'The Impossible Hopes Of Sisyphus' is 1097x740 visible, the canvas is 1117x760.
For these works on Top Gun canvas I trace with the Polydraw and use oil paint, pencil won't stick to the waxy canvas. I used a new technique today, applying the paint with palette knife which was far faster than the subby brush along each line. It still took several hours to trace, but not as long as some works. I recall 'The Art Of Painting' taking many hours spread over 3 days to trace. This is of comparable complexity and took about 4 hours.
I feel artless and uncreative. My instincts and cries are all for music. It's a tragedy that the things I could make are being lost; this feeling last night inspired me to work on the painting today. It's a tragedy that the things I am making are being lost or unseen or unheard or ignored.
I feel I could do better, that everything is weaker than it could be. Every time I finish a painting, a piece or music, a piece of writing, it seems far worse than planned, far worse that I feel I am capable of doing. It instantly becomes a failure, yet that shame of failure generates an inspirational energy. The anxiety of the failure induces an aspiration to make the artwork again, or make something new, something similar, something better, and trying to do it as well as I'd planned, as well as I know that I can; and yet everything I complete generates the same feeling, that it's good or bad, but never as good as planned, and I'm again filled with the shame and knowledge that I can do far better.
Today I'm tortured by that feeling constantly. That everything is a failure and yet simultaneously know that I'm capable of much more, much better, if only I could somehow prove it.
Two days ago I watched a film called The Killings At Outpost Zeta by Robert Emenegger, a man who is perhaps the Ed Wood of the 1980s. Actually, from what I've seen, his films are worse than Ed Wood's. 'Zeta' is a cheap copy of Alien that is so immensely bad that it borders on hilarious, though it's usually more boring than scary. By chance I've also seen Beyond the Universe, which is perhaps the worst film I've ever seen, yet so bad I just had to keep watching. In that film, the Earth is running out of oxygen. The government plan on sedating everyone to save oxygen, but the 'world's best scientist' decides to overrule their plan and build a giant laser-gun-like weapon to beam a message beyond the universe to 'God', to ask him for advice (that's right, asking God for advice was his entire plan). I mention these films because no matter how bad I feel that my art is or has ever been, it is still at its worst far better than either of these films.
