I didn’t realize it would conjure up such conflicting emotions as I sent my artwork off to SLC for the second round of judging in the art competition.  On the one hand, I’m thrilled and excited to have gotten through the first round.  On the other, it was difficult to part with the piece.  As an artist, I feel like I put a lot of myself into my work - so it’s like sending a tiny bit of my soul away.  Thankfully, it regenerates.  Another thing, is I’m trying to trust that it will make it there safely.  It’s not so good for encaustic work to travel in 35 degree or colder weather (which it is).  It could crack and come right off the substrate.  But, it had to be done, and now.  And, actually, I’m glad it left yesterday, because today, it’s about 11 degrees outside!  Oh, and the sticker shock - <gulp> - I had to overnight it to minimize the transit time.  That was painful.

The photos are of an accordion book I had made for parents & grandparents for Christmas (front, back, folded).   An inexpensive gift that they really enjoyed, especially since we’re far away and they haven’t seen the kids in a few years.

I had mine professionally printed (saved a lot of time), but I think it would be a project which could be do-able by hand.

Creativity Question:  Do you ever get stuck in the middle of a project?  And you can’t figure out what to do to fix it, and/or how to proceed?  What do you do?  Do you have a recipe for clearing your creative roadblocks?

This happens to me A LOT.  Really.  It happened when I was taking design classes, and it happened when I was designing our Christmas card - of course it seems to happen frequently when I have a deadline closing in.  I admit I don’t always know what to do.  A lot of times, I just entirely scrap what I’m doing and start over with something completely different and it works (like with the Christmas card).  Other times, if I just set it aside for a while - a few days sometimes, it will come to me.  I wish I had a more consistent method.  Any ideas? It seems like if I think about it too much, it just makes it harder.  Hmm.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 9:02 am and is filed under artsy, babble. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.