Giving Up on a Medium...

[Use Her Name]

You know, if you have space to work too, people may be eager to rent time on your machine. In my town, they have an intaglio press for rent by the hour or day. If you know enough to see to the technical side, you have a nice little potential money maker.

[byron]

get a sketchbook and a black pen and just let your frustrations out for a while. scribble away. who cares. sketchbooks are just diaries for your own thoughts in your own shorthand. once you relearn your unique shorthand and let go of all the junk you have been stuffing in your head about whats right and wrong, how it is supposed to look and all that, you will find your own again. sketchbooks are vital for creative growth. doodles and sketches are more important than drawings. give up trying to be someone else and just make a mess of some paper. you shouldn't even care if you like it. if it disgust you just fold the page over itself so you don't have to see it when you are going through your sketchbook.

[mooksii]

Ummm..... What???? When did you write this??? I love your work!!! I have been following your website for a little while now and you are an inspiration to me!!
Please Please Please don't stop!!! keep going!!!!

Your dogs are so cute too! My daughter wants to adopt a greyhound so we've been looking into how we go about doing this.

You have a great style and character about your work. Its wonderful. I think you are being way to hard on yourself. Maybe you need to try something different like drypoint etching or even normal etching on aluminium plates. I have a very eco safe recipe for making up a solution for the etching process. Its safer than the nasty acid traditionally used and cheaper too!

Please get in touch with me if you are interested in getting it from me!!

Using aluminium is alot cheaper than using zinc or copper plates. For drypoint I use thin plastic plates. you can get them here

http://www.artshedbrisbane.com.au/in...emart&Itemid=8

This is an Australian website but I'm sure you'd be able to find them where you are : ) I've just put this link here so you'll know what I'm talking about.

For drypoint I find the plastic plates easier to use (as there is less preparation compared with the aluminium) - you basically etch in the pic and it's ready to print.

Go easy on yourself Jen! Your work is amazing!

[Geekette]

I had the same experience when I was working in Acrylics. I first started with Acrylics when I learned to paint because of the easy cleanup and the short drying time appealed to my youthful impatience. I enjoyed it at first, but the more I learned about painting, the more frustrated I got with the acrylics. I just couldn't get them to do what I wanted them to, and the results were always dissatisfying.

I ditched the acrylics for a time, and switched to water-mixable oils, but some time later, I was given a plain ceramic statue, the kind you paint yourself. I painted it my acrylics, and found the process a lot less frustrating than working on canvas.

Perhaps you just need a break, or a new application for the medium that's frustrating you.

[tintero]

I bought lots of books and dvd's about painting and drawing. I Got lots of paint tubes and charcoal pencils. I read and watched many artist's works.... then I sat down expecting some divine creative force would come to me.... I waited and waited... nothing happened.... creativity is just like anything else in this world... it require action to make it happen.... I got my pencil and drew anything, even stupid silly lines... little by little my silly lines are becoming forms and some of this forms are becoming ideas... I think creativity is coming this way for me. By the way... I don't know much English but I think creativity comes from the word "create" I think this is key.
just create things... any kind of things in any kind of medium. Don't give up!

Marco.

[stlukesguild]

This is my first time posting in this forum, I think. And I'm not even sure it's the right one (although I didn't notice any, "I Feel Like Stabbing Myself in the Eye" forums lol)...

You try a new medium. You spend your first year or two totally in love. Then... things go down hill... slowly... you try to learn some new techniques... go to some classes and workshops... over the next few years... buy more and more materials... DVDs and books... but you never get that first "love" back. You seem to slip. Every time you sit down at your drafting table, you find yourself filled with doubt. You buy some books and DVDs on creativity, try even MORE techniques. More workshops. Yet every piece you do... falls on its face. You join forums online, message boards, build awesome relationships with other people working in the same medium you are. Yet you dread sitting down to actually work.

What to do???? Has anyone ever gone through this??

I can't say I have shared such feelings myself... at least not since art school and the days of trying out one medium after another. Of course you are never going to regain the experience of the "the first love" of a new medium while working in that same medium. Everything is new then. You don't know the limitations and so you'll try anything... and the learning curve is wholly different. The improvement from one work to the next is immediately recognizable. In a sense it's like comparing the first flush and gush of a new love affair with a relationship that has lasted for years. Perhaps the initial flush and magic seems gone... but quite likely it was replaced by something far deeper if the relationship (with either a medium or a person) has lasted as long as it has.

But as other's have suggested... you're not married to you press. There's no rule that an artist must be monogamous. If you so loved pastels... then surely do more pastels. You never know how these might inform or inspire your prints.

If the work lacks a spark, certainly switching to a new medium can reignite this spark... but one need not be so drastic. Look at your prints... take an inventory of the elements that you have repeated again and again. What could you change? If your prints are all small in scale, what of the challenge of a large print? Are you a purist? What if you shook things up with a mix of media (print, painting, ink, gold leaf, etc...). What of your subject matter? Could you push that? Do you find that you are repeating certain compositional elements? What if you changed these or inverted them. What if you intentionally avoided your usual approach to line or color?

If art (regardless of your medium) is to remain a life-long love affair, you must find ways to infuse excitement and magic into this relationship and it seems to me that changing your medium any time the initial spark seems gone is not likely to be the most productive means to this end.

[AshlandCreekArt]

I agree with most of what's been said here. Change is good ... and inevitable. That doesn't mean that you have to abandon what you're doing now. If you feel like it you can keep doing what you're doing on a limited basis and also do something else. Maybe sketching or pastels. Give time and relax.

[WFMartin]

I have difficulty understanding your dilemma. To me, beginning a new medium was always a royal paint the butt, until I began gaining enough technical skill with it to be able to turn out acceptable art.

I found no excitement nor joy, nor satisfaction when dealing with a medium with which I was not familiar. Now, I've been working in oils and watercolors for many years, and I find them by far more "exciting" than the day I first began struggling with them. The reason for me, of course, is that I don't experience much joy or satisfaction in working with a medium that still requires a great deal of "experimentation" in order to make things come out right.

It seems that artists, in general, seem to have some undying inspiration to begin working with some medium other than that which they are truly skilled, and I have difficulty understanding that. I suppose the word would be "bored". But, in my case rather than becoming bored with a medium with which I was becoming more and more familiar, instead I began enjoying the familiar process more and more. It is this process that I enjoy, daily, and routinely, and my excitement comes from other things.

Today, my excitement, inspiration, and interest depends upon my subject matter, and the creative way in which I want to express it, with a medium with which I am now relatively familiar.

I am one who cherishes familiarity, and I shun needless "experimentation", the likes of which are far more frustrating to me than "exciting". Not the "artist way", for sure, and I am aware of that. But it is of no consequence to me, whatsoever, as I am totally committed to what I do.

If you have become disenchanted with block printing, you either have not truly learned it to the extent that you should have in order to create work with which you are generally pleased, .....OR, you are so skilled in doing it that you have mistakenly allowed yourself to become "bored" with doing the "same operations" over and over, rather than relaxing and languishing in a process with which you are familiar, and gleaning your "excitement" from inventing new subjects to create with this process with in which you are totally skilled.

That's just my take on this, based upon my own experiences.

[birdhs]

I think this is such a fascinating topic.

In my life, when I feel bored with something, I have learned to go back to the basics.
I get a pad and just go and draw, just like I did in the beginning.
Then I will take down one of the hundreds (literally) art books I have collected on, say, oil painting, and do a color chart, and just follow the exercises in the book.
It rejuvenates me to feel like a newcomer.
I also find I am reading things that I missed the first time. Go figure.


Also, the thing I enjoy most are the classes at college that have mixed levels of experience all together.
Reaching over and answering a question from a total newcomer to art helps me to grow.
I am always amazed at how many great new artists are out there in the world,
and how much the student teaches the oldtimer.

Offer to teach someone, or a group, it will make you feel like a new person. and the ideas they have will re-ignite your passion.

Personally, I work better in a room full of others. Talking to myself is much like having a conversation with an idiot....

BTW: these ideas apply to ALL areas of my life.

My participation in 12 step groups (for the last 31 years) follows exactly the same process as my art does.
When bored I go back to the basics, work with newcomers, and go to meetings
all those things help stabilize me by sharing my problems with others.

and thanks to all who have shared.

Life is good

greg

[AllisonR]

So you want a divorce, and everyone is suggesting you have a separation first. Well, this was august last year. Maybe you should give us an update. Did you have an affair or two with other mediums or subject matter?

FWIW, I have never stopped painting, but I quit mediums. I did silk painting for several years. I was inthralled with it, passionate about it. I never hit the "I hate it stage", but I did get to where I thought I was not growing as much with the medium. And I had a serious problem with longevity - silks fade, like a leather sofa. Even if you care for them well, they still fade.

So I went back to acrylics. I also want to say that sometimes it is not the medium, but where you are with it. I had a specific style in acrylics I was comfortable with, but after several years, my development of skill and challenge was no longer acceptable to me. So I stayed with acrylics, but completely changed styles. To an absurd degree, where people who see my new work will insist that it is two different artists.

Where are you at? An update please!

[loft artist]

Take time out ... try a completely different pastime , then you will come back refreshed !... honest

loft