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Watercolor Woes

A friend of mine saw my post about watercolors and asked me if I would be willing to make some Harry Potter wall art for a Baby shower she was attending. Her friend, like us, loves Harry Potter and wanted to include some subtle elements of the fandom into the nursery. I was thrilled to give this project a try as I am really enjoying using my watercolor supplies.

I sometimes find myself in a creative rut, and during these times I find myself procrastinating projects and generally not trusting in my creative abilities. As always, when I get in my craft room, settle down with a cup of tea, a snack and some relaxing music, I wind up enjoying the time I spend there. Today was no exception, until I finished my work, stepped back and noticed that one-third of my pieces was not centered on the page. Damn. I am hangry, tired and feeling downright lazy. I don’t want to fix it. But now I hate it.

Here is where things get dicey…

Props to my boyfriend for surviving the actual temper tantrum I threw when he suggested I re-paint the one that is off-center. He is of course correct. And after taking a few minutes to cool off writing this (and maybe have a snack), that is exactly what I will do. Herbal tea this time though as it is getting late.

My lesson learned here is something I fight with often. While sometimes you can find creative ways to “cover-up” or re-balance something that doesn’t line up, sometimes the best solution is to start again. The irony is not lost on me, that the very project that inspired this one was a project where a “cover-up” worked quite successfully. In this case, a fresh start is what this project needs. Here are the reasons why.

  1. I actually considered breaking out the gold nail polish again… this time in the form of some whimsical, magical swirl that was going to magically rebalance the misalignment. And completely ruin the watercolor aesthetic.
  2. I also considered adding a spattering technique, which might have looked cool, but ultimately wouldn’t solve my positioning problem. I did turn my toothbrush and my finger blue in the process.
  3. This artwork is commissioned. I.E. my lovely friend is paying me for good work. The same good work she saw in my previous post. Something my boyfriend reminded me of mid tantrum.
  4. I’ve justified the time spent on the re-do by telling myself that I will hang the “off-cast” in the guest room, and I think it will look stunning (trimmed down to hide the misalignment of course).

So, friends, I leave you with the picture of the “almost perfect” version. I want you to picture the Dealthy Hallows symbol (the geometric symbol on the right for any non-HP nerds) centered on the page. Because I need a fresh mind for this fresh start. IE, I’m probably not going to finish it tonight, but I want to be sure to get this post up. 😉

~Always…. Sarah

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The Happy Accident: How a mistake can make a project better

We have all been there… the moment when you are putting the finishing touch on a project and you sneeze or flinch and smudge a line. I had one of these moments the other night. I had decided to make up a little watercolor card for a wedding I was attending this weekend. Being a novice to watercolors, I thought I would test my limits with black lettering in the form of a monogram.

A  mistake was made!

I started in the middle. Worked to the right and then went back in to add the first letter before waiting for the paint to dry completely…

I panicked. I saw my life flash before my eyes (ok, maybe not that bad… but my heart sank). It was 11pm the night before we were leaving for the event and I had just spent hours painting beautiful flowers into a wreath on this card. I was NOT starting over. My initial reaction was to cover up the mistake with a cutout piece of paper, but was afraid it would look like I was doing just that. Covering up a mistake.

As I was brainstorming ideas to make this look intentional, I remembered a really posh wedding invitation I was sent that had gold-rimmed cardstock. I remembered thinking it was relatively “extra” at the time, but admitted it made the simple paper stand out. So I did a test on a tiny square of paper with gold nail polish and thought it looked pretty good. I tried again with the black lettering on the little piece and l held it up to the card. Now we were working with something. Naturally I couldn’t stop there, so I gold rimmed the entire card. Go big or go home, right? I will tell you, it took the project to a whole other level. Honestly, the picture doesn’t do it justice. I hope the recipients keep this card on their mantle for all of time.

I will now gold rim all of the things.

This outcome got me thinking about mistakes. I know you learn from them, but I never really thought about using them to your advantage in a creative setting. It if wasn’t for the little mistake, I wouldn’t have come up with a solution that ended up taking the card to the next level. There will be projects that cant be saved by gold nail polish (although I will likely try applying this technique to future mistakes because… gold rimmed, am I right?), but I look forward to challenging myself to continue finding creative solutions to problems that not only fix, but enhance a project.

For anyone who is curious, Martha Stewart watercolor brush pens and inexpensive “dry pan” style watercolors on Strathmore watercolor cold press paper were used.

~Sarah

 

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