I find that I am often surprised by myself when I analyse my own work.  My painting techniques, personal style and my application of various materials in my mixed media work seems so far away from my true inner self at times. 

Reason being that I am a perfectionist and am never really 100% satisfied with what I produce creatively and artistically.  As you can imagine this can be somewhat frustrating and to this day I have no idea how I actually ever complete a work.  Right up to that final moment when I have a brush smothered in final layer gloss I’m still not convinced that I’m actually done and that the piece can be called ‘complete’. I remember my art teacher at school saying that the true skill of painting was knowing when your work was finished.  When to add that final touch….or not.  I battle with this.  I will often leave a painting sitting on the easel for weeks and weeks and look at it often over that time to be able to make a call on it’s status. 

The relief is immense when I finally agree (with myself) that I can now work over a final gloss layer and call it finished.

K