Then again...

Seriously, I needed more sleep than I thought last night. Sometimes, ideas that come to you in a sleep-deprived state of mind should sometimes remain just ideas. For example, I set about working on some of the ideas I wrote about in my last post today. Sadly, I remembered that I'd already engaged said ideas last year sometime and had proof of their failure.

Basically, the 'stack' drawings with graphite and oil stick are best left to that medium; not enlarged from the 12" x 12" format they were originally done in and defintirely not with other materials. They just don't work. Today, found a couple of experimental works on paper where I used acrylic paint and medium in an attempt to replicate the smaller graphite stack drawings. The newer attempts completely lacked the spirit of the earlier drawings in two ways; the beauty of the graphite over-laid with oil stick was completely lost when I used ink or acrylic paint with brushes. The size, quality of line, and beauty of the pencil lines softened with a layer of clear or white oil stick are integral to the successes I had with the older drawings, most of which I did in 2005.

Some drawings are just never meant to be worked up into paintings. I have sketchbooks full of sketches and color thumbnails that have never made it to fully-realized paintings or other works; they might look great as a little sketch, but once taken beyond that realm, they'll sometimes just fall flat. That's the beauty of art, though. If you never attempt to push things, you never know what's possible or what's best left alone.