when it's terrible. bad. sucky. yuck. crap.

copyright 2012 Tricia Larese

I started revamping this painting this week. I had thrown it in my closet about a month ago, annoyed with how flat it felt and how dark the layers of glaze were. I was very discouraged, because this composition started out as a sketch I loved. It then became an under-painting on the canvas I like quite a lot. And in the space of a couple of afternoons it transmogrified into crap.

I teach art to elementary students, and not a class goes by where one of the artists brings me his work in frustration, on the verge of wadding it up or otherwise destroying it. I usually ask him to take it back to his table and just consider it for a few minutes. Maybe this will show him the way he needs to take the piece next. About 7 times out of ten, the student will get back to work and make their piece into something new or better.

It would be too easy if I took my own advice, now, wouldn't it? When I don't like my art, I hide it away in a dark corner of my closet. I gesso over its offending image. I've even ceremoniously burn a piece. (I'm artist. I'm given to grand and/or over dramatic gestures.)

But that was last year. And it was last year when I thought this painting was crap.

Now, it's this year. This year I push forward and through. This year I turn crap into... something. I don't know if I'll like it yet. But I'm considering it. I'm gonna definitely take it somewhere new.

My question to you is: What do you do when you think a piece of your art is terrible? Do you wish you did something different when that happens. Do you have something lurking in a closet or drawer begging you to consider it?

~Tricia