Today, while cleaning my art shelf, I found some left out bits of cartridge paper which I normally use for painting or sketching. I am very conscious when it comes to saving papers and I ensure that even the smallest bit doesn’t go into the trash. I either make bookmarks or miniature paintings out of them so that they never go wasted. The piece of paper that I found today was large enough to be used for miniature paintings. Without delaying further I took few of my brushes and some acrylic colors. I cut the paper into three equal squares with the intention of making three mini paintings. I already had a couple of ideas in my mind which I was too scared to try on a larger paper or canvas. So the mission was experimentation, execution of new ideas and of course beautifying the leftovers.
The very first theme that I chose for my painting was a dreamy evening sky with illustration of bokeh effect visualized through the net grills. Initially I thought of finishing the painting quickly as I was already used to painting sky and bokeh in acrylics. But getting the perfect outline of the grills became a tedious task altogether that I almost lost patience and reached the verge of giving up! The sky came out the way I wanted it to be but the grill outline turned out to be a mess! And since I had used acrylic colors I had the privilege to add some more colors to mask the crap that I had made. I did add few more layers of colors and once again drew the grills. This time I managed to get a proper outline although I messed up a bit in the corners. To enhance the quality of the painting I painted a few silhouette trees. Finally I illustrated the bokeh effect and completed the painting. All together this game went about for two hours!!
I took up the second piece of paper and decided to paint a dense forest with sunlight peeping in through the dense cover. I took time and tried painting what I had planned. The outcome was totally contradict to what I had intended. I was clueless for a while and had to take break before taking any step further. I was so saturated after looking at the spoiled paper that I ran out of ideas for a moment. But my creative mind didn’t let me to throw away that small piece of color smeared paper. I took out my black paint and painted the entire paper with the same. With the hope of finding some new ideas I went for a quick shower. While bathing, I noticed few soap bubbles floating on the surface of water. These transparent soap bubbles exhibited rainbow colors and a new idea flickered across my mind. I felt that painting these soap bubbles on the ruined paper would make a good painting. After a good shower, my mind calmed down and most importantly I had an idea to proceed further. I painted a few soap bubbles and they turned out well! There I was happily giggling and satisfied after completing the painting. I was left out with the third piece of paper. The theme that I chose was rain droplets on a window panel. And thankfully I did not mess up anywhere this time. I was done with the third painting too.
Now you may wonder why I shared this ‘behind the scenes’ story even after successfully completing the painting. I am sure that some of you might have already exited after reading the first or second paragraph, no worries though! So, first and foremost thing that I would like to tell you is that my biggest source of inspiration for my artworks is failure. Yes you heard that right, my failures teach me a lot of lessons and it makes me more confident and perfect! Experiencing artblocks, running out of ideas and taking a small break from what you love the most is absolutely fine as long as you don’t stop it entirely. We are human beings and experiencing highs and lows is quite natural. So the tip from my end is never felt dejected when you experience a failure. Try to acknowledge the mistake instead of bogging and see to it that you never repeat it again. Today, at the end of the day I not only had three paintings in my hand but I also had a bountiful of lessons that I learnt from the mistakes that I committed. With the hope that this little piece of advice would make a difference I am ending this story!
Stay safe, Stay creative 🙂
anubhavalahari 