Surely you have heard of
this expression. Well today I am
presenting a case where my eyes, or in this case, my ambition and enthusiasm,
were bigger than my determination and self-discipline.
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| Weille Buildings |
The Weille Buildings on
Broadway, current home of the Paducah School of Art and Design, has been
calling to me with its elaborate and ornate detail, but a little voice in my
head kept saying, “Billy, are you sure you want to do this? You may be a tiger, but this is a lot
of work.” Of course I didn’t
listen; it simply had to be included in my Paducah Portfolio, and I was sure I
was up to the task of rendering the building, in watercolor and/or markers. After all, this is what I do!
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| work in progress |
So I started the laborious
task of laying out the building, figuring scale and proportions and size. I worked on the drawing for about 30 to
40 minutes every day, stopping when I began seeing double or started mumbling
things to myself under my breath.
I eventually reached the stage where I could begin adding color to the
completed parts…I needed to feel like I was making progress. A little color, a little drawing, a
little more color, a little more drawing, on and on, day after day, after day,
when suddenly, out of the blue, it came to me. I could not spend another minute on this without going nuts,
and I knew how to extract myself from the quagmire that it was becoming.
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| Weille Buildings...markers...14x13 |
Every artist knows that
there are times when we allow the viewers to complete the image using their
eyes and their imagination, by leaving a part of the painting or drawing
incomplete. Often the viewer is
not even aware of this.
Hey...I did all the hard work!
1 comment:
I actually really like and appreciate an unfinished work like this. I would hang this on my wall in a heart beat. My parents have had an unfinished self portrait of a man (they don't know who he is) for over 30 years. It makes the viewer an active part of the work.
Sue
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