The first time I remember nearly losing my mind over art was in the year 2000. I settled into a nice apartment with a woodland name and set up an area to paint. There was an image in my head that needed to be painted, but I wasn’t ready to let it go. I kept holding it in until I had what I needed to put it down in paint.

I’ve been going to the same Hobby lobby since 1999, here in Indy. They knew me as the artist who would pace the canvas isle searching for the right size. Sometimes I’d find it but it wasn’t time to put it on canvas so I’d wander over to the paint section and choose something just right.

The art felt like it was boiling inside me, just swirling and rolling around. It was bliss and burden put together. But that was the point, I didn’t want that art piece on canvas until it broke out of me.

I know this sounds strange, someone though, has to know how this feels and what I was doing. I only wanted to ‘let go’ when it was the right time.

Once I finally bought the canvas I’d set up the brushes and leave the blank canvas hanging, taunting me almost. It was artist foreplay and it was building to the point where I couldn’t take another breath if I didn’t pick up the brush and paint. And so it happened, I made the first stroke with trembling hands. Minutes later I’d be in a frenzy with such focus I could no longer hear the CD’s on continuous play in the background. Creed – Human Clay. Linkin Park – Hybrid Theory, Matchbox Twenty – Yourself or Someone Like You, Mad Season.

I didn’t sleep much. Frenzied, I didn’t eat much. Three days later a 5 foot image was complete. I could finally rest after the release of a nude angel with black wings, on a silver background. She was the art on the inside that couldn’t stay there any longer.

For several years I painted that way. I waited for the art to nearly tear me from the inside just to get out, and not a second sooner. Recently I’ve felt that torture, and the feeling that there’s a painting that has to be put on canvas. So ….. let the artistic foreplay begin.

Robert

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