Hmm... *swing and a miss*

[merimask]

Okay, maybe I'm being harsh with myself but I'm just not happy with my newest creation.   In the interest of being honest, I have proof here that I don't always get it right.   Anatomy of a swing and a miss:

First I did this sketch, and it came easy and I really liked it.  

I colored it in nice and bright and thought "jewel tones for a change!", just to get away from the black and do something different.  Also, I thought of it as a warm up exercise for the Wave Dragon I'm doing next (I'm shaping the big guy right now, tonight!) which is very very blue-green and vividly jewel-tone-ish.

But!  I violated my own cardinal rule, which is "If I can draw it I can build it".  Hence the detailed sketches in full color; I know if I like the drawing I'll like the sculpture.  Like I said though, I got to work and started changing things right away.  Picked a teal suede for the background (mistake), increased the number of fish (mistake), and totally got away from the reed motif.  I was intrigued by the idea that this was a little round pond and it was being viewed from above...so wouldn't it be cool to have branches in the foreground like they were hanging over the pool?  That was my thought anyway.

But it wasn't in the sketch and so I was winging it, and before I knew it I got carried away with the details of making maple tree branches (which was admittedly a hoot) and I lost the design overall.  It just looks like...a bunch of stuff with no coherence and no flow.  *sigh*

See what I mean?  I lost the point.  Even doing different fish patterns was a bad idea, because there was something about the symmetry of three fish with identical markings that really worked in the original sketch.  But like I said I got carried away with the minutiae and lost sight of the overall design.  Just because I can do really neat stuff with leather doesn't mean I always should...sometimes less is better.

So, not happy.  I've been doing pennance and trying to rectify the situation with a second smaller simpler koi plaque.  It's better but still not quite right.  Did a second sketch too, just to be safe and be sure of the new design, but it's better than the plaque too in some unfathomable way.  

*sigh*  Maybe I need to step back from it all and just get back to work on my dragons, but NOW I'm a little deflated and unsure of my plaques.  *pout*   I hate being unsure of myself.  It infects everything I do and nothing feels right.  Like, right now I hate my hair...why?  It's not especially bad hair today, but I hate it.  

On a totally different note (*changing subject* ) I'm trying an experiment and listing some masks on E-bay.  Good time of year for it, and I thought it'd be good exposure to a wider market so...*shrug*.  I put up a black wolf, a gray wolf, Anubis, and Bast.   Of course in my present mood I'm a bit trepidatious because I know people are often looking for bargains on E-bay and I'm NOT going to play that game...my prices are my prices (though just 'tween us chickens I am setting my reserve below my usual asking price on my personal website...so I suppose someone may see that as a bit of a bargain).   They've been up for a day and I have a number of bids on them already, so that's cool I guess.  At least people are looking at them.  Guess we'll see how it goes.

Keep your fingers crossed.  I know it's a little thing really, but to me it's just another thing that could potentially go wrong and I need a little success sometime soon.  It'd be nice.  :-)

Comments

[zipis1.livejournal.com]

It's true that it isn't quite as good as the sketch, but it's still not a bad plaque. It's got its own little charm. :) 'sides. Every artist has to make SOMEthing that makes them frowny, or else they lose sight of the expectations they hold for themselvs. ...or something. *is half asleep*

One of these days I really do need to get my best friend a gray wollf mask. She LOVES masks and wolves, so I know she'd totally squee. I just have to remember XD

...and I haven't really talked to you in a long time, and that saddens me ;_; *cling*

[ramblinsuze.livejournal.com]

All I can say is that your "miss" is a hell of a lot better than any of my "hit"s! lol Yeah, I think the original sketch would have worked out better, but sometimes you just have to try these things and see what happens.

Your masks are freakin' gorgeous! What is your eBay seller ID? Not that I can afford them or anything (*sigh*), but I thought I'd take a peek. :)

[rumdiculous.livejournal.com]

I swear, it reminds me of a MC Escher drawing.

I still say the plaque is good. BUT it's nothing like your original idea. The sense of tranquility is gone and the colors have changed the feeling. Not a bad thing, though. There is a flow with the fish, it's like they're darting under the branches.

If the project is bothering you, step away from it and push it to the corner of your mind. Dwelling on mistakes won't get you anywhere. That breeds doubt. Later you may have a revelation about the fishies.

*whispers* naked sephiroth...

[golden-meliades.livejournal.com]

I love the colours in the sketch, and not so crazy about the deep red with the teal-blue of the plaque. The bright blue water with the green grass in the first is awesome...but then I do loooove blue and green together. (I just made a stick in those colours.)

I best like the fish that swim under the branches, they look more 'included' to me, less flat. Could you maybe make the water wave over them in some way? Oh that just sounds weird when I say it and I don't know how to say it better so...nevermind. I like the more similar white fish of the drawing, too...the different fish in the plaque look a little busy.

The maple leaves are awesome. They'd make gorgeous earrings. @.@

Swing and a Miss

[(Anonymous)]

Oh please - I adore your plaques. I need to make you some really cool calligraphy to swap for them so that I can finish out my four seasons dragons. I plan to save space for them in the new house. And given the quantity of SF/fantasy art I've collected, anything that gets wall space saved for it is being complimented.

It's not weasel spit, but no it didn't work. The biggest problem is that it's too busy. There's too much going on - five fish in two colors and five patterns, branches, leaves, waves... There's no sense of unification like the original sketch had. Also, the thing I love about your work is it's dimensionality, and this one is missing that. Even under water you should see the shape of the fish.

The last issue that I see with the composition is that you have a very static arrangement - that particular symmetry of the four fish set around one in the center - *particularly* with the four outside being white and the central one in red has made them even flatter. If you look at your original sketch, the arrangement of three in the same color scheme gives you a sense of the fish swirling around in the water. The five fish layout has no sense of movement.

Now that I've pointed all of that out - accept it as a lesson and move on. If you don't do these things and make mistakes, you don't grow as an artist. Ask me sometime about all the calligraphy pieces that didn't make it off of my drawing board. I've learned more from those than I did from the ones that came out perfectly. Accept the lesson, be grateful for it, and make something beautiful *because* of it.

Eloise

[pzb.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I feel your pain. For every piece I post and/or print, there are at least ten pieces of shit that will never again see the light of day. And I'm not even proud of everything I post either. Hell, Die vs Crimson....to me, Crimson is crap, while Die just flew out in less than five hours. There are just those pieces that come naturally...and those that you can picture exactly....but they never come out exactly as you picture. :D

As the saying goes - "The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."