Struggled

(left) The rejected project
(right) The final project

What should have been an easy swap turned out to be an unnecessarily agonizing journey. One of the problems that I have when creating is that I become fixated on a single concept of the project. Unlike one artist who has the ability to go with the flow, I know what I want and I will be determined to continue to try and get what I want no matter how many times I have to attempt the project.

The problem with this approach is that I end up wasting time and materials and in the end, I still switch to something else. Granted, most of these projects are paper projects that are easily replicated. I don't think that I would be so determined if I were working in larger or more expensive media.

The project was supposed to be a postcard based on birds--that's it. Since I have been working on my book of silhouettes, I thought that I would do something on that order. When I found out the theme, I automatically thought of of the nursery rhyme Four and Twenty Blackbirds. I used a watercolor card base. I then printed the tag line from the rhyme, and place the matted silhouette over the card. I just couldn't get the silhouette that I wanted. As I was getting more frustrated, I started to get sloppy. The best card is the one that I show above--including all of the fingerprints that found themselves in the ModPodged edges.

I then took a day off and decided to try something different. I printed the word "bird" on the right margin on the postcard. I then glued a sheet of handmade petal infused paper on top of the written card. I used a tissue cut flower that my friend makes in Hong Kong. On top of that, I put a simple hummingbird silhouette that I designed.

So simple. Why couldn't I just do that two weeks ago?