Leap of faith

This is something I've wanted to paint for a while. A young girl jumping. When you are a child you do things out of curiosity, with eager and sometimes without thinking about the consequences. Like jumping off a cliff. 

I want to signal independence, freedom, being brave and trusting in your own abilities. Yes, she is jumping off a cliff, but it doesn't look like she is scared, or jumping to commit suicide. If it looks like that I've failed while making the picture ;) 

When you take a leap of faith, you gamble. It can go well or you can fail. But if you never take that leap, you will never ever even have the possibility to do well/be successful/gain a wonderful experience. If you fail, you still have gained a valuable experience. 

• Rough textures
  
• Few details 
  
• Wind in her hair
  
• Strong contrasts between dark and light
  
• Agressive brush strokes

I made this after I had been sitting for hours working with fine details and I needed to let loose (I have a lot of ideas stored at the back of my brain for moments like this ;)). 

I often get obsessed with details in my paintings, which is a good thing when you paint realistically, but not that good if you want to paint more freely. My spanish mentor always believed in me and sat the standards high, since then I look at what I do with a very critical eye, thinking about what she would want me to change. Looking at this above I see a million things I could "fix". But the thing is that this is not supposed to be perfect. This is a leap of faith for me too. Not to push it too far.