Paintings

So in one of my first posts I mentioned that I occasionally paint, and I don't think I've ever said anything about that afterwards, apart from the fact that I am often unsure whether a painting is "done" or not. That is, as you will see, one of the main problems I have when painting.
But first, a short history.
My mother took a arts class when I was still very young, and I was very jealous of her, because she could draw an apple and it would look like a real apple, while mine would look like circles coloured in red and yellow with a brown line sticking out. I was never any good at drawing, but I did do it a lot, I even had my own comic book "series" (inspired on the Donald Duck magazine), which involved all the cats in the neighbourhood. This drawing-craze died out when I came into my teens, but when I went away for my studies I took my mother's (who had stopped doing anything years before) big box of painting-things with me and started doing watercolours, mainly because they're cheap (once you have the paint) and easy and it dries fast. I mostly made some fantastical children's-book-illustration-like images, some of which I quite like. I was really never any good, though, and soon I didn't have the time/energy/inspiration anymore (see The Creative Side), so I quit.
And then about a year ago my mother started taking art classes again, and she has become really good. I mean really good. She knows composition, and colours, and she paints a painting that would take you and me days in about 4 hours and then sits back and enjoys it. At first she also did some watercolours, but she quickly moved on to acrylics and oil paint. She does figurative things, and abstract, and blends, and everything! So every time I got home there would be another painting to see and like and discuss, and I got more and more restless again. I wanted to paint too! And in acrylics!
So I bought a lot of paint and some brushes and some cheap canvasses (it always starts with spending loads of money) and started to paint. Now I have always been very figurative in my paintings, I cannot do abstract and much as I love them, I could never do impressionistic paintings because they require you to paint something up close that does not really make sense until you are 3 meters away from it, and I need to see what I am doing. So I painted things. My first paintings were really childlike, looking like neatly coloured-in images, and so far removed from what I wanted it to be that I became frustrated and stopped doing it.

But then one day I was looking at one of the arty cards I got, and I realised I had been doing it all wrong. You see, in watercolours, if you don't want the colours to run into each other, you have to wait for the first layer to dry before you add the second, and you can have colours run into each other, but you can't really mix them, because then you end up with a big brown-greyish mash. But in acrylics, you don't wait for the bottom colours to dry, because then you get those bordered-off areas that seem to float on top of each other but do not relate to each other. You paint the first colour, let it dry a bit, and then you paint the second colour, and it's no problem if they mix a bit, because they will keep their colours or become a nice blend, but they won't turn all greyish. And then I got a big load of very nice small brushes for the Postcrossing-Sinterklaas thing I did, so I could paint smaller things, and then I started painting again.

The first thing I painted you can see to the right (I am putting up quite bad quality photos from weird angles, with flash marks and bits of background showing on purpose, because I have seen stuff stolen on the Internet just a bit too many times. I could scan them and give you a high quality nice image, but I'm not gonna). It is not very happy, clearly, but it kinda looks like I wanted. But it isn't finished. I know it isn't because something is missing, and I think that something is colour, but I'm not sure, it may also be the fact that the statue seems to be floating and the bushes in the background look unrealistic, but I don't know how to fix that. I am really happy with the statue though, and with the tree, so that is good, although I am unsure whether I will ever finish this one. I would need some good advice or tips on how to do that without destroying the things I already have and am proud of, so I may write this off as my first "real acrylics" painting.

And then this morning I painted something else. I wanted to do something colourful, if only to contrast with the sad dreary painting, and something simple with a bird and a tree (birds and trees are my thing, don't ask me why). I painted this in about half an hour, which seems oddly short but felt quite right. The problem is, I don't know if it's finished. As you can see, I didn't paint the tree, which was going to be on the left, running out of frame, and I am not sure whether it needs the tree. I was going to add some blue or purple colour in the bottom, but I'm not sure whether it needs that either. I am really happy with what I have, the bird looks like it is falling over at first, but when you look at it longer you realise it isn't, and the background came out just like I wanted it. But is it finished? I don't know! With the first one I'm sure it isn't finished but I don't know what to add, while with this one I do know what I want to add, but I don't know whether I need to!

Argh, the frustration!

Now I have ruined paintings in the past by doing or adding too much to them (something my mum is also suffering from), so I am just going to leave this one for the time being. It is kinda funny, because my class got cancelled today and I have the whole day to paint, but now I will stop doing it after an hour. That's just the way it goes. Inspiration is a fickle thing.

But if any of you have any good ideas or tips please please leave them in the comments. You don't have to do art or know about art, because neither do I, and really, I could use all the help I need!