In my art classes in school I would always chose a final project that was very ambitious. Different teachers on different occasions said “thats a little much isn’t it?” Or “that’s a lot are you sure you can handle that?” I did; and I would do a project like painting 2,000 quarter inch diamonds different colors or an overly complex still life.
I remember one project we had ~ we had to dry rub a texture onto paper and then draw it with charcoal. Me and all my classmates left the room to roam campus and find textures to capture with the blunt end of a charcoal stick and paper. I found myself halfway across campus rubbing the fence of the parking garage and car grills. I came back to class pretty late because I noticed everyone was working or had been done for quite a bit. Mostly everyone finished up in the 3 hour class but I did homework for 6 hours trying to finish the chaos of textures.
I find myself choosing these complex projects because I am impressed with complex art. Most the time they have turned out fine and I ended up learning more than I would have otherwise.
Diving in the deep end is a good way to learn. One must figure it out along by the way of doing it for yourself. I find it is often a better teacher than someone telling you something. (For art at least)
It helped that these projects had deadlines. I feel like I need a deadline with the project I’m working on now. I work for an hour here and and paint a little there slowly chipping away at the finished piece. (Often revisiting the same spot again and again.) If I had it my way at my real job I’d be the same way ~ work for an hour, take a break. I get tired after an hour but I’m forced to push through. At home I am not forced to finish up big projects so when I get tired after I grab a snack or my phone or something random and don’t usually get back around to it.
That’s something I can work on and maybe will this week. But so far I did a little painting, a lot of YouTube video studying, and Eureka! another idea for a series! I want to finish up this big painting to start on that so maybe I should give myself a deadline.
Bye
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