You never know which paintings will be left unfinished- gold star trickster Process (Patreon)

I've been working on this painting for about a year. I kept getting distracted with other projects. 

first I painted an underpainting of the figure. I wanted to give the wall behind her a cement texture that I could carve the coyote head into. I did that with course molding paste. 

Molding paste is a thick painting medium that has the consistency of cake frosting. It comes in lighter forms, heavier forms and (kind of like peanut butter) degrees of chunkiness and smoothness. The chunkiness is achieved by mixing little bead things into it. Here's more about molding paste 

There's nothing wrong with leaving paintings unfinished 

In fact there are a lot of great artists who left incomplete paintings. 

• Michaelangelo's the Entombment of Christ 
• Leonardo da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi 
• Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck 
• Benjamin West's American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Agreement with Great Britain 

you never really know which paintings will be left unfinished in your life. Each beginning is a kind of question which is never really answered until the final brush stroke has been laid down.

I'm glad that I finished this painting. I was happy with it the whole way through the process. There was no reason it needed to take 12 times longer than it should have. Just good old fashioned distraction.