Sunday, January 8, 2023

Bugged

 




Picture of "swarm" in progress

I posted a picture of this piece while it was in progress to FB.  My caption read: "its not working for me and I think I am going to start over. (I will assemble this as a study, however) It feels kind of crazy to start over: this represents about 5-6 weeks of work. But it just isn't working for me."
I did not include a picture of the sketch of the  entire piece.

Sketch of entire idea
 
It was really fascinating to read the comments.  First of all, there was an outpouring of supportive, positive comments.  Thank you! This was incredibly nice and it felt really good.  But I didn't post the image and comment to try to get compliments or to change my mind and it didn't.  Mainly I posted it because I figured that, as a "successful artist" (and yes, I am grateful to believe that I actually am that!) it might be interesting to share the fact that I struggle a lot with what I do.
Is this the crazed hamster wheel of a lunatic perfectionist?  Yeah, maybe!
Completed study assembled


Here is some further analysis on my part:
First of all, what is unseen in the photo is the surface of the glass.  I did a lot of experimentation on tis piece--and when it didn't work I removed it with engraving tools.  The surface of the glass eventually became pretty obnoxious in areas.  It couldn't be painted on easily and I had engraved all the color off and that ain't coming back...so what to do?
Second of all, some of the bugs--especially the smaller and medium sized ones were not as well designed as I would have liked.  I knew I could do better--and when I like them, I try harder to do them justice in terms of color and technique so some of these bugs were not only sub par designs, but they were also poorly drawn and poorly engraved.
Even though the colors may look very familiar to my work, I found them a little grating.  I did the color a little different this time--I worked with a color sketch.  I thought this would save time--but what it really did was lock me into a plan I found to be problematic.  Boo! 

The less fun I had, the less love and care I put into it.  That made it really easy to take some big risks...mainly with the "deep space".  The decision to try blue with tiny white flies was pretty radical--but I don't think it works.  At least not as well as it can--I wanted a deep space, glowy effect and it just looked kind of splotchy.

Do I have confidence  will nail it next time?  N I do NOT, thanks for asking!  But, hey: I'm gonna try!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing your story. I think you're a hero.
Good luck on the next attempt!

Anonymous said...

Trying anything new often opens the door to several attempts at getting it right. This is all part of learning, and growing as an artist. It takes a confident and generous artist to share the attempts and not just the finished product! Thank you for leading by example!

Petri Anderson said...

I totally get that…RESPECT! Onward and upward.