Frustration

“Frustration,” 18″ x 24″, oil on canvas, $1250

Eventually, you do an exercise in an art class or workshop where you paint an emotion. That’s not really what I did here. This painting is how I see “frustration” and how I experience it, though I didn’t quite know until I painted it.

It was not an exercise in frustration. It was quite enjoyable to paint.

Some cool things about this painting:

• it is entirely done in cyan, magenta, yellow, and white
• the background is magenta (rose) with a little dab of cyan (cobalt blue)
  • To make the white lines pop, I added the slightest touch of yellow, careful not to overdo it
• the boxes were done with a palette knife (very thickly)
• there are some subtle details not visible in the photo
• the boxes represent a massive frustration that I can’t shake

Now that I’ve painted it, hopefully it will leave me alone and let me move on to other paintings, stop occupying that little space that is set on “ad infinitum” and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out where the switch or dial is to change it up.

But it’s okay now. I think.

How does this painting make you feel?