Post 13 now up

 

 

HERE is my last post to the XII Analogue Painting Challenge. I am of two minds about the end of this event. I really have got a lot of stuff done (I still have far too much to be done) but at the same time I am beat. I certainly was running on empty for the last couple of weeks, I was loosing my focus, getting distracted and procrastinating. Many old bad habits were returning. 

In fact if I had not so publicly accepted the challenge to build the mountain I would never have done it, I would have simply sloughed it off, as I did so many other things.. I had hoped to paint a collection of figures to go with the mountain, but I just could not make it happen. My biggest fear right now is that I slip back into my old ways and loose my painting drive. However, I need a break. I need to clean up my room, put away some toys so that I can get back to painting. Without the self imposed weekly deadline and my compulsion to get as much done as I can in the 12-13 weeks of the challenge I can hopefully quickly rebuild my work area.  

The irony about my results in the Analogue challenge is that even though I was able to get so much done, score so many more points than I expected, I still failed to finish off everything that I had hoped to finish. I am sort of impressed with my production speed. I was asked about that and while I gave an answer, the actual answer is a bit more complex. 

I was able to do the output because:

1.  I am retired
2. I found time every day (at least at the start) to paint
3. I am a basic painter, I do not do fancy stuff
4. I do not know how to paint the way the pros do, so what I do is simple
5. I only paint to table top levels
6. The challenge made me paint more stuff.
7. Success bred success, once I saw I could do stuff I wanted to do more
   

I used my competitive nature and the resulting points from the challenge as a tool. The more I painted the more points I got, the higher in the point standing. In the end though I do not care about the points I care about how much stuff is now completed. I compare this to squash. I cannot simply rally when I play squash, I will not give it my all, I will not throw myself against the wall or skid across tha floor on my bear legs. But play a game, keep track of the score, then I will launch myself into the game, often shedding blood. But even then I rely on my opponent to keep track of the score, and win or lose after the game is done the score is forgotten as we are on to the next game. It is the competition of the moment that drives me forward, and that applied to the Analogue challenge. Ultimately the points meant nothing except so far as they translate into the completion of projects!

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