Is it procrastination or divine timing?
It’s the end of February, which means I’m navigating my way out of the throes of winter and all that darkness and time diving inward has offered my creative practice. January through March have become an annual period of experimentation — mostly because there is nothing else to do. However, with experimentation comes new struggle. I’ve learned the hard way that before I could ever dream of becoming a master, I must first play the fool.
Nov. 2023
This past weekend my mother traveled from the Brainerd Lakes Area to Two Harbors to pay me a little visit. As is customary, she likes to see all the paintings that I didn’t post to social media to see for herself what I’ve been up to. Bless mothers, she is gracious and complimentary about everything I create no matter what I think of it. We were discussing paper sizes when I pulled out my 16x20” Arches cold press watercolor block and I opened it to find a piece I had painted in November but had completely forgotten about. I don’t typically forget about paintings, but this was one of which I had repressed the memory.
I had desperately wanted this piece to turn out. At the time I was looking forward to the land being heavily blanketed in snow, the sky deep and heavy with more precipitation to come — it’s one of my favorite scenes in winter because I love the anticipation of a looming snowstorm (little did I know I was about to experience nearly the brownest Minnesota winter I’ve seen in my entire lifetime). As I was painting the piece, it had turned out to be completely underwhelming. There was just something about it that felt “blah” but at the time, I couldn’t put my finger on what it needed or whether or not I could salvage it. So into the pile of watercolor blocks it went to be forgotten about as “something I may come back to.”
What November Katie didn’t know was that January through February of 2024 would be a time to build a little more grit. I’m not normally someone who paints something three or four times until I get it right but this was a lesson I was going to learn in the coming months.
Recently, someone commissioned me to paint a gorgeous piece of this view of the river where their cabin is located. I saw the photo and thought “easy peasy, water, trees, my cup o’ tea.” Oh, how my mighty ego took a tumble. I painted this piece not once, not twice, not three times, but four. I just couldn’t put my name on something that didn’t capture the spiritual essence of the piece. After try number three, I collapsed into a heap on my couch and had a good cry out of frustration and sheer creative exhaustion. It was then that I had an epiphany. I wasn’t relying on my creative intuition, I was trying to copy a photo.
In that moment I vowed to turn off my logical brain completely, and something snapped into place. I cleaned out my palette, I put in my earplugs and instead of painting the picture, I painted the feeling.
It turned out to be one of my favorite commissioned pieces I’ve ever created.
But this my friends, is not where the story ends!
Fast forward to this past weekend, the moment I picked up this 16x20” underwhelming winter piece. I thought to myself, “Oh, what a beautiful start to this painting, I just needed the guts to add in some dimension.”So I did. And you know what? It turned out quite lovely and I’m very happy with the result.
The more I paint, grow, experiment, struggle, cry, pick myself up and try again, the more I learn that everything happens when it’s meant to happen. This painting was not meant to be finished in November at its inception, it was meant to be finished at the end of February after I’d learned a valuable lesson in resilience. Only then could it be given the life it needed.
finished piece “The Winter I Wanted” Feb. 2024
original watercolor on paper 16”x20”
If you are interested in this piece click here!