The Ugly Stage

For the artists reading this, don't know if this happens to you but it does to me.
Hitting the ugly stage of a painting. All of a sudden a good plan becomes a mess.
The brilliant execution flounders. There is no hope of recovery.

Well, maybe there is. I've been doing this long enough to know that if I keep working at it I can move through it. But there is always that lingering doubt.

On this piece it happened on the left to middle background trees. I could not see the forest for the trees or maybe it was the other way around. Rather than stop and take a photo (and you would have been able to see the mess) I kept working it. No food, no distractions, no stopping, just trying to quiet my intellectual hesitations and let the painting happen.

It took a while but I believe I came out the other side. The background now speaks more to my experience with the horses than I originally envisioned.