Steampunk Sea Art...Sea Punk?

I wanted to do a quick post to share something that I accomplished last week.  It's one of the paintings I referenced in my post about failure! 

A few months ago I was working in my sketchbook and started working on a drawing of a Steampunk'd-out sea horse.  I really liked it, but didn't go anywhere with it at that point.  Then, a few weeks ago at 212, our graphic design guy Keith showed us the postcard he made for Saline Picture Frame's Circle of Art - an annual art auction that benefits Food Gatherers of Ann Arbor.  The theme for this year's art auction is Steampunk!  I knew what I had to do...

I took my sea horse sketch, did some tweaks and changes, and made it into a small watercolor painting. It was going along well - I liked the colors, felt pretty confident about it, and while there were a few things I thought about changing, was pleased with how it was coming along.  My final touch was to do the inking on it, and it went well...until I shook my koh-i-noor ink well pen too close to the painting and disaster struck:

The ink splotched everywhere (including on me), and all over the lower portion of the painting.  I couldn't believe it!  I tried to do a pattern on the tail that would cover the ink or incorporate it somehow, but failed miserably.  

At that point I realized that I could sit there and brood about my messed up painting, or just Keep Moving Forward and start over.  I'm fairly pleased with the results! There are some things I liked better on the first, some better on the second, but all in all I'm happy with it: 

You can bid on the finished, non-ink splotched sea horse on the Circle of Art website, or go to the event on May 18th from 12-5pm at Saline Picture Frame and bid on it in person!  I'm also planning on doing more of these to sell on my Etsy shop, and will post a link where there up.  There will be more Steampunk animals to come, as well!

Week 7: Failure!

So last week I...failed. I was working on a couple of paintings, and they just did NOT turn out the way I wanted them!!  One of them I just kept staring at thinking, "I don't know what I thought I was doing here..."  I had a very "Dinosaur-from-Meet-the-Robinsons" moment:

I knew, though, that, "From failure, you learn. From success...not so much." I'm frustrated that these paintings didn't turn out how I planned them, but I'm learning a lot in the process.  For one of them, I started over from scratch and ended up like parts of the second one better, but other parts I felt were better in the first painting.  Each time I learn something and each subsequent painting that I do will be better for it.  Failure can be one of the best learning tools that we have!

You just have to focus on what you have learned, rather than on the fact that you failed.

"Keep moving forward" - possibly the most important step.  When we fail and then just sit and stew in our failure, nothing gets accomplished.  But if we pause, accept our failure, and then keep moving forward, we can learn so much more and become a better person for it.

Walt Disney had it right!  So don't worry if you fail.  Just go watch "Meet the Robinsons" (one of my favorite movies, if you can't already tell), and then Keep Moving Forward!
(I didn't mean for this post to be a motivational speech, but there you go!)