05/18/2012
I'll admit one of my faults: I have a difficult time focusing on completing work or following through on ideas, especially now that I'm out of school. From a still non-existent sleep schedule, to just learning I was severely iron-deficient anemic (no wonder I was always fatigued! I thought it was left over from mono or just sleep deprivation), to the flow and ebb of my interests, many factors contribute to how long I keep up with a piece. I'll start a piece and after maybe one or two sessions, I stop. I'll lose interest in the subject. Or I'll recognize how many more hours it's going to take to accomplish what I want to do and be intimidated or more often, I just think that the idea is not worth pursuing or wasn't good from the get go. So, I'll quit, figuring if I've lost my love for working with the piece, I may as well move on to something fresh. I believe my best pieces came out of love some way or another, be it I'm having a good time in the throws of the process or I enjoy what I'm looking at.
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| Recent Example: In my last post I had just started this painting. I only spent one other afternoon on it (4/02/12) and then stopped, since the blossoms fell off the tree and I busied myself with other projects. I don't think I knew what to do next- I wanted to fix that door and the picnic table, but on some levels I thought I should tone down everything, or put something else between me and the picture, since it's really flat. Something seems off to me, besides it not being finished. Maybe I was too distracted by those blossoms, they kind of overpower everything but the yellow green trees in the background. |
I know that I need more structure and discipline, and I have constructed several "mini curricula" for myself to follow, from elaborate plans on what to do each week experimenting with elements of art or going taking inspiration from different times in art history, to more simple "paint one oil painting a month" demands on myself- even that I haven't been able to stick to. I come up with more ideas for projects than I execute- so my sketch book is brimming with my ideas for future books or series I imagine myself working with. Its executing those ideas, or following through with the projects after that first go that I'm trying to deal with.
I sometimes feel constrained because since I'm living at home for the time being, there's not a lot of space for me to work or store work, and I'm more hesitant to make messes. But I also recognize that could be interpreted as complete bull because shouldn't I be able to adapt to my surroundings? Shouldn't I be finding ways to work, in spite of these "restrictions"? I have been doing many smaller, quicker sketches, but not many larger works, complete to my satisfaction. We'll see if starting a job soon will help give me structure to my days; I may find it easier to work on my art once I have a schedule in place.
Here's to recognizing my faults and here's to working to change it!
But good news: since I first started composing this post and photographing incomplete work a couple days ago, I have since started a fun little oil painting series which I'll share soon, I hope. Well, I've made two paintings (in one day!!!), but I've been imagining how I'll go further with it already. AND it's still life- kind of. I haven't oil painted a still life since school.
And here's a selection of photos of incomplete projects I've had lying around in wait:
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| A watercolor of my backyard in the fall that ended as quickly as it began. Also the maple tree on the left is no longer there :-( |
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Almost the same view of my backyard as above, however, this time in pastel on newsprint.
I know, this was more of a sketch, but I had wanted to work on it in a bigger scale on actual pastel paper. |
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| So I may have shared this on a previous post, but I want to return to this at some point, maybe. So its still in my room, with the painters tape on it (no longer sticky though :-( ). It relates to a similar print I made last year, but the print was 1x3 inches |
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| I started this drypoint earlier this spring, but I stopped working on it mostly because I've been meaning to get this bit holder (I forget the name) for my dremmel so that it can hold the tinier engraving bit I have. This was mostly made with the tiny engraving bit that kept falling out and a larger engraving bit that fit, but made thicker, less delicate lines than I wanted. Its very hard to control the dremmel on such a tiny plate. Even with incremental breaks my hand continued shaking for a couple hours after. |
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| And this is a sketch of part of an incomplete project. These are sketches of swans I was incorporating into a larger illustration/piece for a friend of mine who wanted an piece based off of the fairy tale called The Seven Swans. I have about 15+ other larger sketches of this multiple scenes I was planning on combining into one, but I ended up hating most of them. I just didn't know how to make a singular piece based off an entire story with strikingly visual scenes (princess cursed to not talk else brothers permanently swans, bird brothers hauling princess over water, princess living in cave, princess saved by prince and taken to castle, princess in cemetaries scrounging for sacred thistles, princess about to be burned at the stake). Not very fair for my friend who wanted the piece, but I wouldn't want to hang what I was making in my own place. Although at this point I've taken so long to get back to it, she probably doesn't expect anything, but I'm going to try to return to the project soon! |
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Okay, so this was another sketch in my sketchbook but I really wanted to finish it and then paint it (I used watercolor pencils!)
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| I started drawing this view of my backyard from my window, but clearly I got distracted at some point |
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| This is tracing paper leftover from a woodcut I was planning to work on from the fall of my Senior Year. This is a project I've been meaning to get back to, ever since I had mono and subsequently gave up on this. |
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| However, as you can see, it has a ton of layers of color. Which I can do. But I was having a difficult time planning it, as I was going to do a reductive woodcut. Maybe I need a second block. Or make parts of it screen printed. Or Make myself stencils. Either way, this is a perfect example of one of those projects I've stopped and not continued because it's a little daunting. |
I'm planning my next post to be about self portraits and other sketches I've been doing. Come back to check that out hopefully by next week. And then the post after that will be about the new painting series I started doing and other side projects.
