Do you ever find yourself working with a piece for hours on end only to end up with a big mess? How many times are you “allowed” to scrape before you wave the white palette knife of defeat? Well, for some reason that was me this past weekend. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted and was determined to make it happen, but guess what? It didn’t happen. That’s because this line of art is a game. A mental game. One where you have to be willing to bend, or it can break you.
Supplies I Used:
- Anita’s Acrylic Craft Paint in white and black
- Floetrol Flood
- Spot On Treadmill Silicone
- Folk Art Acrylic Paint
With each piece, you have a sort of vague design in your head with a specific set of colors, maybe you want big cells over small ones, and a lot of negative space. And just when you think you’ve gotten the hang of manipulating the paint, it seems to prove you wrong. You’ve been tilting, swiping, re-pouring and nothing seems to be going your way.
You cannot make this paint do what you so badly desire. You’re frustrated and on the verge of defeat, ready to give up on your piece. You’re worried about the canvas, the paint, and other supplies you’ve wasted on disappointing results. And then you remember the game of art.
Art has a way of getting into your head, running through your veins and the only way for it to escape is to get it out on paper, canvas, wood, etc. You have to keep moving, keep changing, keep creating or it will drive you crazy and keep you up at night. It’s strange, isn’t it? How art can make you feel so at peace, so free, and so defeated all at the same time.
And that’s okay. If you kept all those defeats, all those mess-ups, all those scrapes locked up inside you, you’d go absolutely stir crazy. You have to release the energy that comes with each scraped piece escape so that you can harbor the energy necessary for your next favorite piece. Don’t let the scrapes stop you from creating. Don’t let them make you give up and quit. Get them out of your system, do a little shake, give yourself a break, and make that piece you’ve been dreaming of.
Taylor spends her days working as a cast technician at an orthopedic clinic in her home town of Gadsden, AL. In 2016, she graduated from the University of Alabama with a Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Human Performance and Exercise Science. She also runs a business called TayylorMade dedicated solely to creating custom art for her clients. If she is not creating, she can often be found cheering on her Alma Mater, cuddling her dog, or cooking up some fun snacks for family and friends. Taylor loves the freedom and peace creating art gives her, specifically the “beautiful chaos” that is acrylic pouring. She hopes to help teach, guide, and inspire others to find their talents outside of their everyday “office job.”
Thank you so much for your musing, have just spent a week creating a mess and getting really frustrated with results that were nothing like what I had envisaged. I feel that I am not alone, it happens to other artists too…it is life, so I will not give up, I will accept that things go wrong, even though 7 failures do not mean that the 8th will fail too, or maybe it will…who knows, but somewhere along the line I will succeed!!!!!
Your embellishing of the acrylic picture is wounderful.