I truly wish studios came equipped with little guardians (maybe a daemon?) that were capable of body slamming and hog-tying us when we started to do something really stupid, but alas, they don't and I did.
It all started out harmlessly enough. I've continued to work in my Winter Interrupted sketchbook from the workshop a few weeks ago and I managed to paint the first sunset painting I've ever liked:
And life was good.
Until I went into the kitchen and noticed a really cool texture on some new paper towels we had just bought that looked a lot like a beach towel-ish texture. Well, the brain synapse fired off—beach+sunset+beach towel=brilliant idea!
Yeah, except not so much.
I am FOREVER telling folks to experiment on another piece of paper first rather than commit to your artwork and risk being an unhappy camper. So I did and it kinda worked. I used a blue stamp pad on the paper towel and stamped it on tracing paper. It worked well enough that I decided to go for it.
It didn't work. My page was a much larger area and the towel was drying before I could get an imprint.
I should have just stopped. But oh, no. Nothing quite so brilliant crossed my mind.
(And I had no little guardian to say, "You are on the verge of a colossal mistake. Step away from the sketchbook and no one gets hurt.")
Instead, I thought, "Hey, I have a stamp with a similar texture!"
Similar but not the same and apparently, the differences escaped my notice.
And so I stamped it. Not bad, really, but NOTHING like I had in mind. The lines were too…straight and rigid. I wanted relaxed and flow-y. Meandering, maybe.
Annoyed with my results, I sulked for a while, trying to find a way to make the page work. Not too much later, a new thought struck!
In another moment of sheer brilliance, I decided to add gesso to the offending texture to "knock-back" the blue and hopefully obscure some of the lines.
Only, it didn't really work. (Grumble, grumble.)
So, this time, not in brilliance, but out of desperation, I decided to add some more color…blues, lavenders and grays.
(Do I at least get a point or two for persistence?)
And it sucked! I'm sure you are just as shocked as I was.
Thank goodness for gesso and baby wipes. I removed as much of the color as I could and in doing so managed to smear a bit of paint into the white border around the sketch. Oh, the horror!! I had to fix it!
(What do you mean, "Where's the photo?! I didn't want anyone to see that!)
In trying to fix the smeared paint, I touched the very dark paint and it BLED!
And then I had an even bigger mess.
("Arrrrgh, just shoot me now! Can you not see what you're doing, lass? Stop already before you've completely ruint the thing," pleads the imaginary guardian.)
But did I stop? No. I. Did. Not.
So in my final moment of staggering brilliance—you, in the back, stop with the eye-rolling and chuckles—I grabbed a couple of pieces of tape to use over the sketch so that the paint wouldn't run while I cleaned up the smear AND the bleeding.
And it didn't. The paint didn't run a bit.
But the paper tore and the paint lifted when I lifted the tape.
("For the love of Pete, woman, just...just stop!!" my little guardian would have been screaming at me.)
After repairing the smear, the bleed and the area where the paper tore and where the painted lifted, I was almost, but not quite, back to where I started.
In a quiet moment of admitted defeat, I decided to heed the advice of my make believe guardian and just journal on the page and call it finished before I did something I couldn't salvage.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the only true moment of brilliance I had through the whole, entire process.
(And if I had said guardian, at this point, his hair ripped out of his head, his voice hoarse from screaming, shoulders slumped, he would have tendered his resignation while muttering something about "bloody brilliant, my arse" as he trudged out the door.)
I think I'm in the market for a new imaginary guardian...
It all started out harmlessly enough. I've continued to work in my Winter Interrupted sketchbook from the workshop a few weeks ago and I managed to paint the first sunset painting I've ever liked:
 |
| Our Last Sunset Watercolor Stillman & Birn Zeta Sketchbook |
And life was good.
Until I went into the kitchen and noticed a really cool texture on some new paper towels we had just bought that looked a lot like a beach towel-ish texture. Well, the brain synapse fired off—beach+sunset+beach towel=brilliant idea!
Yeah, except not so much.
I am FOREVER telling folks to experiment on another piece of paper first rather than commit to your artwork and risk being an unhappy camper. So I did and it kinda worked. I used a blue stamp pad on the paper towel and stamped it on tracing paper. It worked well enough that I decided to go for it.
It didn't work. My page was a much larger area and the towel was drying before I could get an imprint.
I should have just stopped. But oh, no. Nothing quite so brilliant crossed my mind.
(And I had no little guardian to say, "You are on the verge of a colossal mistake. Step away from the sketchbook and no one gets hurt.")
Instead, I thought, "Hey, I have a stamp with a similar texture!"
Similar but not the same and apparently, the differences escaped my notice.
 |
| Our Last Sunset Watercolor with stamping around image Stillman & Birn Zeta Sketchbook |
Annoyed with my results, I sulked for a while, trying to find a way to make the page work. Not too much later, a new thought struck!
In another moment of sheer brilliance, I decided to add gesso to the offending texture to "knock-back" the blue and hopefully obscure some of the lines.
Only, it didn't really work. (Grumble, grumble.)
So, this time, not in brilliance, but out of desperation, I decided to add some more color…blues, lavenders and grays.
(Do I at least get a point or two for persistence?)
And it sucked! I'm sure you are just as shocked as I was.
Thank goodness for gesso and baby wipes. I removed as much of the color as I could and in doing so managed to smear a bit of paint into the white border around the sketch. Oh, the horror!! I had to fix it!
(What do you mean, "Where's the photo?! I didn't want anyone to see that!)
In trying to fix the smeared paint, I touched the very dark paint and it BLED!
And then I had an even bigger mess.
("Arrrrgh, just shoot me now! Can you not see what you're doing, lass? Stop already before you've completely ruint the thing," pleads the imaginary guardian.)
But did I stop? No. I. Did. Not.
So in my final moment of staggering brilliance—you, in the back, stop with the eye-rolling and chuckles—I grabbed a couple of pieces of tape to use over the sketch so that the paint wouldn't run while I cleaned up the smear AND the bleeding.
And it didn't. The paint didn't run a bit.
But the paper tore and the paint lifted when I lifted the tape.
("For the love of Pete, woman, just...just stop!!" my little guardian would have been screaming at me.)
After repairing the smear, the bleed and the area where the paper tore and where the painted lifted, I was almost, but not quite, back to where I started.
In a quiet moment of admitted defeat, I decided to heed the advice of my make believe guardian and just journal on the page and call it finished before I did something I couldn't salvage.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the only true moment of brilliance I had through the whole, entire process.
 |
| The Final Sunset Page |
I think I'm in the market for a new imaginary guardian...
