Sometimes You Have to Edit

I think I’ve proven in the past, that I don’t post only my ‘successful’ artwork. Creating can be hard, frustrating, and sometimes, you just have to EDIT! My ‘success’ with my large Van Gogh inspired Blue Irises painting,led me to tackle another large project.  If you missed it, you can see my version of Blue Irises in THIS POST.  This time, I chose to do a sunflower.

SUNFLOWER

I belong to a group where photographers share their photos, for artists to use as references. So, there’s no concern about copyright infringement. This photo was posted by a photographer named Tim Comeaux.

I liked the unique reference, with the photo taken from the back of the sunflower. I love the rich greens of the leaves against the bright yellow. So, I tried!

ALCOHOL INK SUNFLOWER

The rich colours lent themselves to the vibrancy of alcohol inks, so I chose that as my medium, on Yupo.  I did a rough sketch of the image, and painted with my Ranger alcohol inks.

Well, I worked, and worked, and worked some more!! As you can see, I wasn’t able to capture the beautiful leaves, and even the petals I think are kinda ‘iffy’.  But, after spending the better part of a week, off and on, working on this, I’m loathe the throw it out. First, I tried placing a mat over it, to see if that improved it.

Nope – not so much! And this photo just was too bright, and washed out the yellows!

BRING IN THE EDIT!

So, I looked at the areas that I just couldn’t fix, and didn’t like. Well, what if I took them out? Instead of physically chopping up this 9″ x 12″ piece, I simply used a smaller mat!

What if the focus is placed on the upper left portion of the painting? It removes that (what I consider) hideous bottom leaf, which is so distracting. And it hides the mess I made of the upper leaf, as well.  What do you think?

You can try moving the mat around, to focus on different areas. For the one above, I raised the mat up higher, to completely remove the bottom leaf from the framed area.

SOMETIMES, YOU HAVE TO EDIT!

Wouldn’t it be great if we could use an edit like this with our lives? Actually, we can – just focus on the good, and deal with the ‘bad’ or negative parts.  While I consider this particular work to be an epic fail, I also learned a lot from it.  And yes, I will try it again! Maybe next time I’ll try a smaller version, or do an already edited version. I definitely need practice on sunflower leaves, that’s for sure! LOL  I really wanted to capture the veining and fuzzy, scritchy texture of the leaves.

So – takeaways from this work? Be patient, be kind to yourself, and always take every piece you do as a learning objective. Just because one piece is a failure, doesn’t mean the next one will be, or vice-versa. We have to keep up with the practice, practice, practice.

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