Q and A.......And A Supply Discombobulation

  A crazy morning here!............. Moody chickens, snakes, cat escapades and a coffee tragedy, at least it's Friday!

  Good morning.........I needed stuff, what else is new. I did make a large supply haul for paint, not too long ago and thought I had bought everything I needed. Wrong.

  I don't know if I hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before I went on this haul or maybe I didn't have my coffee that day but,  for some reason, I bought the opposite of what I would normally buy.

  When I paint, in acrylic, I use a limited palette of colors. You won't find hundreds of paint tubes and jars in my studio, you will probably only find about 12, maybe 15 at most. The reason is, I take these basic colors and make hundreds more colors by mixing them together myself. By doing that, I get richer and more unique colors than you will find ready made in a tube. Not to mention not having to spend tons of money on various colors of paint. Some tubes and jars of acrylic, especially your Cadmium colors, (oranges, yellows and reds),  can be really pricey.

  Well yesterday, I checked my nifty little Ikea rolling cart where I keep all my acrylic painting supplies and lo and behold, I was missing several of my basic colors but discovered that I had managed to buy a few impulse ones instead, Like this huge tube of turquoise. I could of at least bought the smaller tube but, NO, for some reason I just had to have the industrial sized tube. Keep in mind that you can make your own turquoise using Pthalo blue and yellow.

  So why did I spend money on that gigantor tube of turquoise? honestly I don't know. That's where that lack of sleep theory comes in. Turquoise happens to be my favorite color, I was just discussing that this morning with a couple friends on Facebook, you know who you are,  so possibly I was just needing an instant color fix.



  Yesterday, I had to go on a second, expensive paint haul to get the colors I actually need and should have bought in the first place. Napthol Red, which is a true red unlike Cadmium Red which has orange undertones and Ultramarine Blue which I use to make my gray greens. I also needed Raw Umber which is a much needed color for toning down other colors that I mess up and make too bright.

  And of course, I had to throw a couple of fun, not really needed,  goodies into the cart just for grins and giggles.

  I'm broke .......again.......but at least I can paint!  Now, let's get off of that long, winded tangent and onto the QandA. I was asked a very common yet good question. "When do you know a drawing or painting is finished"?

  Here is my humble opinion. I feel the work is finished when the artist feels satisfied with it. There are times when I could just keep going and going on a piece. I will walk away then come back and walk away and come back again and again. I will also just stare at it, catatonic-ally,  for a couple days sometimes, just trying to find something I either did wrong or left out.

  Now, here is the other side to that dilemma. I taught art for a long time and one thing I noticed in my students was, some were giving up to soon. Case in point. Drawings and paintings, when unfinished, go through an ugly stage. They really do. I found that some students, when their work got to that ugly stage, became discouraged and would feel that they had failed or they were not good enough artistically. I would attempt to re-assure them that it was not their lack of ability, the work was fine. That was the way it was supposed to look and that it just wasn't finished. They just simply needed to keep working at it. Drawing and painting takes time and patience and perseverance but the results are more than worth the work.

  Here is an example of an ugly phase. See how weird this looks!  Talk about ugly!!!

  But you keep working on it......................and this happens......................................

 

  And finally....this.................................

   
  I probably could have even done more on the above drawing. but to me, it was finished. There will always be more you feel you can do. Each individual  artist will be the best judge to declare an art piece finished. Can you "over work" a piece. yes, I believe you can. You can get carried away trying to make a work better and then before you know it, you've messed it up. Use your best judgement. Walk away from it once in a while, when you come back to it, you will see it with fresh eyes.

  I hope that helped to answer that question. It's time for me to go make some art. Have a great weekend and go finish whatever it is you have started.