Sunday, January 27, 2008

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

This is my finished piece for the Take It Further challange and I hate it. I really hate it. I would not normally put something this bad on my blog site, but I made a committment to the challange to post everything. This was monoprinted, then I outlined the mountains, then added some painted cheesesloth to the bottom. It was still ugly, so I stamped the mountains with various stamps I had, and then I did some free motion quilting all over. Still ugly, but I'm done. I went into this challange knowing that I was going to experiment and not try to make masterpieces which relieves some of the decision making pressure, and here are the lessons I've learned:
1. Start small. With a larger piece it can quickly become overwhelming.
2. Even though I'm experimenting, I should still take it seriously. On this piece I just wanted to finish it and move on.
3.If I'm not having fun with it, stop. Either start something new or just post the progress I've made.
I'm ready for next months challange now

6 comments:

Donna said...

sounds like you've identified a few good learnings...

Jocelyn in NZ said...

Well good for you, for posting the picture anyway. That takes a heap of courage, doesn't it! For what it's worth, it looks to me like a great piece for a spot of hand embroidery, just to add a bit of texture to the hills etc :)
Jocelyn

Unknown said...

I admire you for putting it up anyway and thank you for sharing the lessons you've learned. The pressure to finish something - anything, it's hard to resist that and allow for incompleteness. I need to learn that too.

Jacqui said...

That is a good lesson to learn, that not all that we do will be a masterpiece.

Working with smaller pieces and if it working might be a way to go. Using a sketch book each day (I don't pratise what I preach but I should) is good thing to do as well.

Look at the work that has been done on the TIF and identify what is you like about that particular piece. Note it down in your sketch book, write words, draw sketches, even print them out as a guide.

Having said that I think your piece is very exciting in own right as because it has dared to fail. Keep at it.

Meg in Tennessee said...

I don't think it looks that bad and look at all the lessons you learned. I did some things on my piece that i thought just ruined it, so I left it to "simmer" for awhile and then I came back, riped off the fusible and tule I had put on it, and then, even though I didn't get all the fusible off, it had much more depth and looked better. I probably have an odd sense of humor, but the black on the bottom of your piece looks like cats crouched down, wagging their tails ready to jump on something. Makes me smile everytime I look at it!

Diane Perin said...

I don't think this is as bad as YOU think it is, but I admire your courage in posting it given how you feel about it. Sounds like you are approaching the experience as a good learning experiment, and that's good. Isn't it funny how even tho we set out to "play" and "try new things," we really do expect ourselves to create something gorgeous every time? No wonder that doesn't happen!