A tamed inner critic

I am feeling more energetic these days.
They say that there is nothing like a deadline to motivate an artist.
We have to pack the art for the shows before we leave NZ on May 15th.
By then the art needs to be dry, signed, tagged and boxed.

The drying time is the trickiest part.
For the art to be fully dry, I will need to complete the pieces by the third week of April.
This will leave two weeks of drying time and one week to pack and get them ready,

Between layers of thick acrylics, I started a new painting in the Artist’s Sketchbook series.
I started with a drawing of a back view of a lady in her night gown.
After much erasing and restating the lines, I ended up with a pleasing beginning to a nice painting.

I notice that these days I hear the inner critic much less.
I even invite her to critic my work before I declare it finished.

I pull a chair in-front of the canvas and ask the inner critic to give me her input.
Anything at all is welcomed. I want to make the painting as powerful as I can.
But she is quiet.
Definitely not vicious as she used to be.
There is no edge to her comments.

I do not celebrate this transformation yet.
I always wanted to have an inner critic that is helpful instead of one that belittles me.
Could it be that it has happened? or is it just a side effect of my improving work ethics.
I have been working vigilantly and continuously in the studio and improving my skills and vision all the time.

The test will be how the inner voice will sound after I have taken a month long trip or got some rejections of my art.