Wednesday, April 4, 2012

that tricky old deal of finishing work

How often have you had an art project 95% finished and yet you cannot find the motivation to do that last 5%. I am like this a lot but a recent example is this portrait of welfare staff at St Margaret's College. After a session printing together and mounting prints for them my task was to make a collective print of all their faces for the College. I was overprinting onto dictionary pages which reflected each persons realm of study - these have been lightly coated in gesso to create a more random, painterly look. I used one of my favourite colours - paynes grey. After they had dried and mounted I should have just mounted them but I have had a busy time and  I couldn't seem to get the job done. Instead I would lie awake at night , worrying about the task a little as one does. So I did that old trick and wrote the task on a big bit of paper and put it on my desk so there was no avoiding it. You know, it only took a pleasurable hour to complete. Same as always I am left on a bit of a high, yet thinking, why did I worry? Why did I not deal to that earlier? Umm, think there might be a few other unfinished jobs I better go and see to!