Yeah, this just needs a little bit more...ah.
There are two temptations you can succumb to when you're drawing or painting. One is that you don't do enough. The other is that you do too much. Both are bad. And the safe place between them can be tiny and hard to find.
I was working on a drawing that wouldn't come together. Even though I'd been careful to work all over the drawing to keep it of a piece, it still looked bitty and the composition tried to fly apart.
I finally got it to look right after three sessions on site. 'One more day and it'll look great,' I told myself. And ruined the whole drawing after twenty minute's work on it the next day.
The moral of this story? Quit while you're ahead. Or be prepared to spend a lot of time putting your mistakes right. 'Maybe if I tried this now...' is a line of thought that can lead to hours of work you didn't plan on doing.
And yet I'm reluctant to offer a one size fits all solution to this particular problem. Sometimes - but only sometimes - it's a good thing to push a drawing or painting past the point where you're guaranteed success. The safe solution can be pretty dull, and exceeding your limits is the only way to grow. At least that's the feel good nonsense I tell myself when I'm wrestling with yet another nosediver.
A wiser head offers this solution: put it away for a while, and do something else. And a while means long enough to forget what the problem was in the first place, before you even look at the painting in question again. Then, analyze what the problem is. When a painting doesn't work, the reason is often this:
When you painted it, you didn't know what you were doing.
Time and distance help you see the flaws more easily, and offer fresh solutions that help you to mend them.
There are two temptations you can succumb to when you're drawing or painting. One is that you don't do enough. The other is that you do too much. Both are bad. And the safe place between them can be tiny and hard to find.
I was working on a drawing that wouldn't come together. Even though I'd been careful to work all over the drawing to keep it of a piece, it still looked bitty and the composition tried to fly apart.
I finally got it to look right after three sessions on site. 'One more day and it'll look great,' I told myself. And ruined the whole drawing after twenty minute's work on it the next day.
The moral of this story? Quit while you're ahead. Or be prepared to spend a lot of time putting your mistakes right. 'Maybe if I tried this now...' is a line of thought that can lead to hours of work you didn't plan on doing.
And yet I'm reluctant to offer a one size fits all solution to this particular problem. Sometimes - but only sometimes - it's a good thing to push a drawing or painting past the point where you're guaranteed success. The safe solution can be pretty dull, and exceeding your limits is the only way to grow. At least that's the feel good nonsense I tell myself when I'm wrestling with yet another nosediver.
A wiser head offers this solution: put it away for a while, and do something else. And a while means long enough to forget what the problem was in the first place, before you even look at the painting in question again. Then, analyze what the problem is. When a painting doesn't work, the reason is often this:
When you painted it, you didn't know what you were doing.
Time and distance help you see the flaws more easily, and offer fresh solutions that help you to mend them.
