Patience, process, and patience...did I mention patience?

Of all the qualities that an artist should have when painting, I've learned that patience is one of the most important. It's also one I totally lack when painting, so it often takes conscious effort for me to stop tinkering and leave it alone. "Put the brush down. Walk away. It needs to dry first. Ugh, but I need to…NO! Walk away!" Or, when I'm varnishing, it's all too tempting to just shave a little off the drying time so you can get all the coats on sooner and finally call it finished. Luckily, I've always been more of a "do it right the first time so you don't have to do it again" kinda girl. And so I wait.

There's a lot of drying time involved when working with texture applications, paint, isolation, and varnish coats, all of which I use regularly in my artwork. It's like waiting for cold water to boil…plus 4 to 48 hours…multiplied by 5+. A fan to help increase drying time? That's a no-no. Not only does it blow dust onto the wet surface of the work, but drying things too quickly can change the behavior and finish of certain materials. You just have to wait.

When a creative person digs into a project, there is often a strong compulsion to work until the creation is finished. For me, this is certainly true, hence my lack of patience for drying time. But, it's a necessary evil, and like it or not, I wait. That's where process comes in for me. I like to know ahead of time for that week what I want to accomplish and how much drying time is involved. Drying time is down time, so I generally have several works in progress at the same time, in various stages.

I'll spend a day applying the texture medium to a few paintings at a time. Depending on the application technique and the thickness of the medium, this stage can take days to fully dry. But of course, I'll have already completed this stage with another batch, which is now completely dry and ready for the second stage, paint.

This is where I know I can cruise for a while and focus on bringing color to my visions. When one is painted, I can move on to the next while that dries. No brainer. If I get stuck on the direction of a painting, I can set it aside, move on to another, and come back to it with fresh eyes. When I get to the last painting, I move on to applying the isolation coat to each, then on to the varnish coats. The varnish stage is admittedly my least favorite. You have to work quickly and accurately with varnish. It takes longer to clean the brush after varnishing than it does to actually apply the varnish coat to a painting. That I'm ok with. Each coat needs a minimum of 4-6 hours of drying time, with a bare minimum of 2 coats per painting. So much waiting…sigh.

However, since I'll already have a batch done that's now dry, I move on to applying the backing and hanging hardware while the latest varnish coats dry, or move on to the texture application on the next batch. Rinse, lather, repeat.

This process has worked well for me, quelling my impatience by always keeping something in the chain ready to go, and I never feel my days are monotonous because of the variety of tasks. It also gives me a fail-safe on creative block, letting me stay productive and focus my attention elsewhere for a bit. Finding a process that works with my strengths and weaknesses has allowed me to really enjoy working on my creations. With any luck, I'll be able to expand my studio soon, and maybe the square footage I have for drying will finally be able to keep up with my ideas for new paintings. Probably not ;)