When I mess up a painting...

A messy look behind the scenes

Hi everyone!

This month’s

illoguild

topic is Behind the Scenes, and today I’m going share some work that I really disliked, and what my process looked like when I wasn’t feeling great about my work.

Like many of you, I grow the most when I make mistakes and give myself the freedom to play. But sometimes it’s hard to keep going when the work on paper looks so different than the original vision. When I made this watercolor painting, I envisioned I would create soft and gorgeous florals for a baby shower invitation. But what ended up on the paper and what I envisioned were quite a mismatch. But you know what? Sometimes that happens. It’s frustrating in the moment, but it would be strange if everything we created was perfect, wouldn’t it?

I’m sharing this with you today, because we don’t always get to see these moments in art making. I figured it might be nice to look behind the scenes at a process that became a bit messy.

So let’s see what happened…

1. I needed to create a baby shower invitation, and since I had just been to a baby shower, I was in the perfect mindset to do this project. I sketched flowers from that shower I attended, and I was feeling pretty inspired.

2. I scanned the sketch and worked on my ipad to rearrange shapes and sketches. I was still feeling pretty good and was happy with the final line work and composition:

3. Next I did a quick color test. I felt the colors might be a little dark for a baby shower, but, honestly, I knew I wouldn’t be able to match them well in watercolor anyways! I have used gouache more, so I know how to mix those colors, but watercolor is less familiar to me. I thought, “That’s fine— I’ll get to learn more about watercolor mixing.” Little did I know I would really regret my choice to try watercolor! Here’s the digital color test:

4. Then I printed out the final line work on printer paper. I placed it on a light box and taped it to the watercolor paper. For some reason I don’t ever have patience to trace my final line work on to the watercolor paper, so this is how I skip that step… Then I began painting. I was doing ok and had all my color mixing charts.

   

   But something just wasn’t working. I tried layering the colors and mixing colors, but I could tell I wasn’t going to like the end result. It wasn’t matching my original vision. I moved on to colored pencil details, because I knew I wasn’t going to like the watercolor today. There was no point forcing more paint onto the paper. I was no longer feeling great about the piece.

5. I scanned it into the computer, and here’s how it looked:

   

   Ugh I disliked so much! I disliked how textured the paper looked. I disliked how the colored pencil looked so rough on the paper. I thought the bright green was way too yellow. The background was splotchy.
   
   I was about to give up, but then I noticed some things I liked. I liked the long pencil lines in the leaves, and I liked the little white flowers in the middle.
   
   I decided to attempt a rescue mission with Adobe Fresco.

6. I made tons of digital edits. So many that it doesn’t even look traditional anymore. Maybe it’s overworked, but I think I managed to salvage it.
   
   Sometimes when I paint a piece, I just scan it an it’s good to go. Other times are like this… the painting did not go according to plan and it needs a lot of post-production.
   
   But hey! In the end, I really leaned into the elements I liked and got to experiment with other adding other details. Anyways, it’s always fun to draw digitally on top of your own scanned artwork.
   
   Did it lose its charm from traditional work? Yes, I think so, but I also played with lots of techniques digitally that I can now apply to future traditional work.
   
   So all in all, not too bad!

So that’s a real life, messy story from behind-the-scenes of my studio. Sometimes artwork doesn’t go according to plan, but usually there is a way to fix it if I let go of my original plan and perfectionism.

So hey, let’s keep making mistakes together!

See you next week!

Katie

This post is part of the monthly illoguild question. This month we focused on Behind the Scenes.

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