I have an unfortunate tendency to abandon works of art, as I’m creating them, if they start going off track. I’m working on not doing that, but it’s built-in that if it starts looking like the piece won’t work as planned, I just give up and go do something else.
It’s something that only applies to art, whereas with the rest of my life I tend to see the problem and deal with it, working around it as I can. I’m trying to fix it when I do art, and the ink card I finished last night (the second one) is a good example of it.
I’m trying to work on the idea that with art I can just let go. Certainly, there are things that have to look a certain way, especially when dealing with a specific character. But I’m learning that if it starts going wrong, let it.
That’s not very easy to do.
But, I’m learning. I don’t think I’ll grow as an artist unless I learn to adapt as I go, to accept that the art wants to look a certain way. No matter how much I fight the piece, I just need to relax and let it happen.
The new ink card below is a perfect example of that. I had a grandiose idea in mind, something that had to look an exact way. Almost from the beginning it was heading off track. Not terribly, but enough that I knew it wasn’t working.
So I stepped back from the table, said a bad word or two (Hogswallop! Balderdash!), sat back down and purposely inked over a part that I was going to finesse in a shadow. I kept going, letting it out, and before too long I had a different piece. Possibly even a better one.
Here it is, it’s 5″ x 7″, ink on 140 lb. Cold Press like the others. It’s called An Old Fight. Opinions always welcome.
