cyclorama

Every time I finish a painting I get inspired to do yet another - I'm not quite satisfied with what I've made, so I decide to take another shot. This one will be better. And so I head out to fight the after hours crowd at Michaels. After weaving past soccer moms and their sweaty offspring clad in black cleats, and confused college students in hoodies looking for cool crap to make for their dorm room, and the giggling pre-teen and her friend that have strayed from her parents only to find the puffy paint aisle, I close in on the canvas section. I grab a few, various sizes, breeze past the oil paint, maybe pick up some more titanium white (I'm always in need of more white) and quickly find my way back to the checkout. No one needs to be in Michaels for an extended period of time. It can lead to a bad bout of hysterical mania - kind of like Tom Thumb on Sunday or NorthPark just about any day of the week or any visit to the DMV. Maybe it's the paint fumes or hot glue. Anyway, I eventually get home with my new canvas, and perhaps new paint. Of course, I do not start painting right away. That's not my style. Instead I let the canvas and the paint sit, in the bag, first on the bench by the kitchen, then they are shoved under the bench, and eventually out of sight. I forget about them. Then, one day, weeks, maybe months later, I get an idea. The painting bug has struck again. So I set up, easel ready, canvas ready, and I start. Mixing the colors is my favorite part. I get started and paint something, something that I've envision in my head. The only problem is that the vision is incomplete, and I get to a certain point and stop. I don't know what to do next. So then the painting, unfinished, sits for weeks, maybe months until I get the urge to just finish the damn thing.