Monstera on Pink, water mixable oil on stretched canvas, 18” x 24”

“Monstera on Pink”, water mixable oils on stretched canvas, 18” x 24”

There are paintings that are an absolute joy for me to paint. The process comes together very easily and in spite of difficult moments, the experience overall is enjoyable. However, this is not one of those paintings. It was more of a challenge than anything else. This was originally an older painting of a cityscape in oil which I did not like. So I applied a few layers of gesso and started again. I wanted to do a botanical piece based on my monstera plant with a very jungley-feel. However, I realized throughout the process of this painting, that as much as I love and am quite comfortable painting florals, I seem to be out of my element when it comes to foliage or plants. Perhaps, it is due to the curvaceous nature of leaves (specifically monstera leaves), that I found myself struggling to portray depth in a seemingly flat surface. Furthermore, even though I did the first few layers in acrylic, I then switched to water mixable oil paints, hoping to give a sense of depth and dimension and add to the vibrancy and highlights.

As I’ve mentioned before, acrylic is my medium of choice, it is where I feel most comfortable. Even though, I’ve gotten my feet wet in oils and painted quite a few pieces in water mixable oils, I still feel apprehensive using them especially for larger paintings. It seems that when I make a mistake in oils it just spirals out of control and I find myself working the whole painting around that mistake rather than the other way round. And of course, due to the slow drying time of oils (even water mixable oils) I had to either rethink certain elements or wait a day or 2 for the paint to dry and paint over it. This made for a very frustrating process, where the original idea of the painting started to spiral out of my control. It got to a point where I had to put the painting away in my closet, thinking that if it was out of sight I would not be tempted to go in and overwork it. This worked for a while but then once again I went in and tried to add a few details, thinking that a highlight here, a muted shadow there would give it the depth I desired.

Eventually, I reached a point where the process was just frustrating and I had to move on to something else. I wouldn’t say its my best work but there are moments in the painting that I am particularly proud of, for example, the background of slightly pink-peach contrasted well with the green foliage, some of the highlights on the leaves, specifically the monstera bud, and the composition as a whole. Perhaps, I will leave it as is, or paint over it something completely different in the future. All I know is that it is alright not to like every painting I make. Art is subjective after all, and there many paintings which I was not particularly fond that surprisingly appealed to people. 

This painting is available in my shop.