It takes two

Here, our two lonely coyotes meet and sing a duet.

I really like how this heart turned out.  When I started it, I almost thought I was going to need to gesso over it and start over.  The coyotes and ground turned out fine, but the background was a hot mess. 

I layered the background over and over until the dusky looking one slowly appeared.  At this point, I am not sure I remember how I did it because I kept going over it with muting down the original background and blending it with buff colors until it looked like a sky.  It is a mixture of buff tones (buff titanium, pale peach, flesh tones) and the original palette mix that I kept toning down….down…and down.

I kept blending until I achieved the sky and mood I was looking for and when this final layer dried, I was so happy with it.  Sometimes the hot messes morph into happy accidents, and into something that looks more like “I meant to do that.”  I like the atmospheric quality that this heart has, almost like it shimmers and that was the look I wanted for this.

Sometimes, as an artist, you have to keep pushing through a problem until it is resolved.  If you give up too soon, you may have only been only a step away from resolving your dilemma instead of giving up and failing.  Even failures have value if you use them to learn what to do better the next time, but the key is to keep going to learn how to achieve your goal.

I know people who rip out their “ugly” pages and hot messes in their sketchbooks.  I never understood that.  Ugly pages have hidden gems in them and you don’t see the value until you flip through your sketchbook months or years later.  Every time I create, I learn something new.  That is the value of pushing through to the end.

That’s one of the main lessons I have learned over the years. Even when the art is in its ugly phase, keep going for the swan.