Sunday, November 23, 2008

Difficult Projects

Earlier I wrote about my struggles with a Holocaust memorial piece, and here it is, reflected in a mirror. It depicts barbed wire, the yellow star of the Jewish ghetto, bloodshed, and the word YIZKOR, or memorial.

It is a sheath of tiny beads, which fits over a standard 24-hour Yizkor candle-in-a-glass. This one fought me every inch of the way, but I did finish it, and I'm pleased with it.

I don't know why my camera couldn't capture the purple color at the bottom, but use your imagination....

I have a number of these memorial candle covers shown on my web page. This is the first one to commemorate the Shoah, and it was by far the hardest I've done.

Have YOU wrestled with a difficult project? Click on "comments" and share with us!

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

When a watercolor painter makes a mistake, it can be tough to correct
because you can't just cover it up with another layer of paint like you can with acrylic or oil paint.
When I make a 'mistake' I often just try to live with it because sometimes it can be delightful in the end. I like a loose style where mistakes just incorporate themselves into the work. Charles Reid, a famous watercolor painter, counsels to not try to fix mistakes, just accept the painting and move on. Of course, we can "lift" some mistakes with a clean wet brush, or even soak the whole painting in water for a while and then scrub the offending passage. Some of the life tends to go out of the painting when you do this, though. Many watercolor painters get frustrated and switch to acrylics or oil at some point.