Something I was told in high school art (and which I apparently have to keep learning over and over again) is - an artist knows when he's reached that particular point in a project where, if he does one more thing to it, he'll ruin it. But me being me, I didn't pay attention and hurt one of my paintings.
I'm referring to the black & white piece I did a couple days back. I decided I didn't like the unevenness of a couple of edges in the figure's shirt and throat so set out to fix them. Instead, I wiped out half the emotional impact of it. It looks good. Still has the sense of holding back. But the pain I once saw in it has all but vanished. Just because I changed the slope of his neck and removed some bumps in the "fabric" of the shirt's neckline, touched up some sloppy lines, added a couple more hairs. Now it's not the same painting, to me.
Compare this version to the one I posted a couple days ago. This is a crappy photo but it gives you an idea. Who knew such tiny alterations would bring forth a new sense of the painting? One I'm not too crazy about, since it's not what I'd done.
Maybe I'm being hyper-critical of my work...or hyper-sensitive to its possibilities concerning the prior one. All I know is, I should have left it alone.
Nothing I can do about it now. Painting it back to where it was with white won't work, since it'll have to go over black and for me to put enough white on there to keep the black from bleeding through, I'd throw the balance of the piece off, even more.
Dammit.
Let's focus on something else. I have 5 of 16 chapters of IF reworked well enough, for now. Some major inconsistencies have been cleared up, mainly as concerns the timeline and who met who when. I also need to change a name and get it consistent; seems I named one of my "made" guys after a real gangster who just got sent up to Attica. That might prove awkward.
OMG, someone's blasting Patsy Cline's "Crazy" out on the street. Just what I needed when dealing with a story about a guy going crazy.
I'm referring to the black & white piece I did a couple days back. I decided I didn't like the unevenness of a couple of edges in the figure's shirt and throat so set out to fix them. Instead, I wiped out half the emotional impact of it. It looks good. Still has the sense of holding back. But the pain I once saw in it has all but vanished. Just because I changed the slope of his neck and removed some bumps in the "fabric" of the shirt's neckline, touched up some sloppy lines, added a couple more hairs. Now it's not the same painting, to me.
Maybe I'm being hyper-critical of my work...or hyper-sensitive to its possibilities concerning the prior one. All I know is, I should have left it alone.
Nothing I can do about it now. Painting it back to where it was with white won't work, since it'll have to go over black and for me to put enough white on there to keep the black from bleeding through, I'd throw the balance of the piece off, even more.
Dammit.
Let's focus on something else. I have 5 of 16 chapters of IF reworked well enough, for now. Some major inconsistencies have been cleared up, mainly as concerns the timeline and who met who when. I also need to change a name and get it consistent; seems I named one of my "made" guys after a real gangster who just got sent up to Attica. That might prove awkward.
OMG, someone's blasting Patsy Cline's "Crazy" out on the street. Just what I needed when dealing with a story about a guy going crazy.
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