By Nancy Rynes
May 2021
I'm feeling artistically restless, which usually signals some kind of creative or stylistic evolution for me. I know to just roll with it and keep painting, but I'm spending today doing something that viscerally satisfying.
I'm sanding down "failed" paintings so that I can start afresh. I usually work on cradled birch panels, so it makes sense to try to reuse them if at all possible since they're a bit of an investment to purchase new.
I don't really view these paintings as "failures," though. I look at them this way: I tried something. It didn't work. I learned from it and now I take what I learned into making a fresh start. Kind of like life :-)
Having a positive viewpoint on these "failed" attempts is crucial for me. I personally know artists who allow themselves to wallow in negativity every time a painting doesn't work out the way they wanted. I get it...it's easy to do. Beating ourselves up when something doesn't work out the way we planned is not unusual for a lot of people. For me, this isn't very productive and it feels bad too. So instead I focus on learning from what didn't work.
Who wants to wallow in negativity? Not me.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not overjoyed when something doesn't work out. While I might be a little disappointed at first, I start realizing the "failure" is giving me some valuable information. I think about why it didn't work:
Was the composition awkward or boring?
Was the lighting ineffective?
Am I unhappy with the color palette I used?
Do I want to tweak my style a little?
Is the subject too trite, overdone, or boring?
Did I overwork it?
Are there anatomical or structural problems?
Or something else?
I spend time considering these things so that I can have a better shot at creating a winning piece next time out. If I don't spend some time in analyzing the "failure", I'll never learn from it and my work won't evolve.
So what's the lesson? Don't beat yourself up over failures. Instead, take some time to consider what didn't go so well and then what you can do better next time.
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