At Last!

I finally finished my White Rabbit painting from my Alice in Wonderland series! This has been such a long process. I started in on my Alice series this year with the intent to have a show this Autumn, but reality set in hard when I realized I needed to spend a lot more time on the paintings than I had thought. It wasn't because I couldn't paint faster, but because I wanted to paint better. I needed to give myself permission to take my time with it. I was pressuring myself, almost panicking, which was silly!

I love art! I love painting! I should be enjoying this series, because I love it too. Why rush through and ruin the journey?

So, I took a deep breath and gave myself permission to slow down. I tried to not think about the countless hours translated to an hourly rate per painting (I'm aware that this one wouldn't even buy a stick of bubble-gum with what it breaks down to per hour.) I tried not to panic about other paintings needing to be done, and allowed myself to take time off to do those here and there (though admittedly, this creates a little bit of painting ADD and a backlog of half finished works. I'm not happy with that. I think I need to clear out the backlog, and get back to finishing what I start. Having a business though, means I need to be able to shift between other projects too, so there's a balance I need to strike with that one.)

What was wonderful about this was that I was able to fall in love with this painting. It started to become very important to me, so much so that I was excited to finally paint the white rabbit, but very nervous too. What happens if I mess it up? But I didn't. And I love it!

I know the series has a long way to go yet. I have a Cheshire cat coming, a Caterpillar, and more! Queen of hearts, and of course ALICE!  All told, I think this series is going to round the bend at about 25 paintings. I'm up to about seven right now. Some smaller ones, but some very large ones are planned. I know they'll be complicated, and I know I'll have to slow down and fall in love with every single one of them. And I know they'll be wonderful.

So, without further ado, here is "Tea Time":

"Tea Time" by Kyra Wilson, Alice in Wonderland series
(held for exhibition)
16x20x0.75 acrylic on stretched canvas.

And here is the time-lapse video of it as well!