When I finished with the underpainting I sat back and though, "Ugh!" I wasn't discouraged. I know it's just the underpainting. But it's not pretty. It's flat. There's not value. There's no form. And then my thoughts, as they usually do, began to make the connection to life. One of the reasons I love painting with oils is that they don't dry quickly. I do have old canvases with old paintings on them and I can simply paint over them and make them new again. But with wet paint I don't necessarily start over every day. I build. I layer. I add and move and adjust until the ugly disappears and the pretty pops out. And then I realize that there was never any ugly in the first place. It was just a simple beginning. Sometimes I see myself as ugly. Then I realize I'm really just being built, layered, moved around, and adjusted. The beauty is there all the time.