Repeating Successes

Okay, yesterday I started this installment 4 times and deleted them and finally gave up and postponed writing this until today. Either I didn't feel it was that interesting or I was annoyed at the negative tones, so I kept starting over. Were they that bad? Probably not, but.... The real problem was Thursday's entry just flowed so easily. I barely had to think about anything and it came out well (at least in my mind). But yesterday, I remembered how easy Thursday was and was struggling to repeat the ease. And it doesn't work like that.

This same problem -- repeating successes -- occurs in art too. For example, I do one drawing which comes out excedingly well. The client likes it and then wants another similar piece. If I were to just 'copy' my previous drawing, it will not come out as well. (I've done that before and it just lacks something.) So, the trick is to repeat the drawing while not thinking about or remembering what I did on that first drawing.

But this repeating success problem also occurs on the larger scale too -- not just individual pieces of art but whole days. On Thursday, I had a wonderful day creating art. I finished the horse/rider portrait, almost finished the 4 ink alpaca drawings, and even another small portrait. Things were effortless and everything came out great. Yesterday, my mind was stuck how easy Thursday was, and nothing came out well or easily. I screwed up the final touches on the ink drawings, so I have to redo 2 of them. Then my stomach started to hurt, thanks to all the tv dinners. And then to top if off, my husband's big rig broke down, had to be towed, and then repaired. It took the mechanics several hours to figure out the problem, so we got a nice fat bill, which meant I had to figure out exactly how we could pay for the repairs. (Just in case someone wonders, it cost almost $400 to tow his truck and diesel mechanics get about $100-120 per hour!) By the end of the day I was depressed, grumpy, and frustrated. Had the artwork been 'easy' to do, then these other problems wouldn't have been so bad and I would have felt a lot better.

Today, however, since Thursday is now further out of my mind, things should go okay. Usually, I don't have 2 really bad days in a row. So, once I redo the ink drawings, I'll start on the new priorities, which are:

• custom cat art card
• a drawing of an alpaca
• 2 floral art cards for eBay