Adventure #115: KJ & The Creative Challenge (Day 4!)

Dear Irene (if anyone named Irene happens to be reading this) and Everyone Else,

Last night before I went to bed, I decided what I was going to do for today's challenge.  But...this morning when I woke up, my head was achey, I felt yucky, and my idea for today's challenge would've taken most of the day.  I didn't think I was up to tackling a big project, though.  I needed something short and sweet.  Simple and fun. 

I'd seen, in various blogs, artists challenging themselves by putting a time limit on a project and I had had that on my list of Things I Want To Try Someday But Probably Never Actually Will Because I Rarely If Ever Have Any Extra Time And This List Is About 897087987982 Items Long List for a while.

Now, I'm a bit of a perfectionist (and that's probably a bit of an understatement)...and perfectionists tend not to do things hurriedly.  Quick is not an adjective you'd use to describe me as an artist.  Neither are speedy or fast.  I don't take years to complete a painting or anything, but I do tend to take my time making sure every last little detail is just so. 

On occasion, I've taken two hours just to get one set of eyes done to my satisfaction.  So, it'd be pretty much impossible for me to do a whole painting in one hour.

Except that's just what I decided to do today!  A whole painting, in just one hour. 

I decided to take an idea that I'd been really, really wanting to use for a long time and to incorporate a different medium than my normal acrylics on at least part of the piece, as well.

And here are the results:

1. I actually took an hour and seven minutes.  Cheater!
2. I really, really like her face and am proud that I managed to get it done in under an hour.  But just barely...I took 50ish minutes to get it done.  Which left 17 minutes for the rest of the painting...
3. I was originally going to give her wings, but when sketching it out, I decided not to, because I like the pose she's in a lot.
4. I'm not happy with the "birds" (um, those would be the things that look like floppy lowercase cursive n's scattered around the words) or
5. the words (too cramped and in my handwriting, which is never the best way for words to start out their lives) or
6. the border, which looks a little too much like a tie dye t-shirt for my own personal tastes -- but the yummy bright colored FW Acrylic Artists Ink was the medium I don't typically use that I chose to use...so I had to use it!  There's a little bit in her eyes and her shirt was done with it, but I felt like that wasn't enough.
7. I do really like her face, though.  Except I've just realized she's missing eyebrows.  And I would totally say I intended to do that, that I was making some sort of political statement, that she shaved them off in protest of hearing the words "Obama" and "McCain" five million and two times each day or something.  But nope: I just forgot them, overlooked them, left them out in my haste to get done so I could run to the window, throw it open, and shout "Voilà!  Fini!" to the world .  Which proves that while I enjoyed doing this exercise and, yay, I actually managed to do it...I probably should go back to my general painting routine that doesn't include rushing and does include all the standard (if not always-- or ever-- of proper proportions) body parts. 

Someday, I want to do this painting again, but on a bigger canvas (this was on a 5.5" x 8.5" sheet of watercolor paper) and taking my own sweet time.   And using different colors...I'd really like to see it in pastels.  And with birds that look more like birds than floppy lowercase cursive n's.

Love,

P.S. Just decided to switch it up a bit from "Dear You". 

Comments

[Johanna]

Which one are you? I'm the one all dainty ladylike eating her slices of apple :) & yeah..tell Benji girls totally have cooties!

[Marisa]

Oooh, love Keely's blouse.

And wowza, those ink illustrations of Mark Alan Stamaty's are amazing!! I love pen and ink... but I'm awful. I used to be better at it, but it is NOT like riding a bicycle (at least not to me).

Good work, stepping out of your comfort zone. And your picture is adorable.

[Lisa]

I loooove that :)

[Johanna]

If she had green eyes she would be me & somehow you found the words I hid so deep & put them on paper :)