Friday, September 28, 2007

Stinky fishies

I am this -> close to finishing my Sept page. I hate it. LOL, no really I hate it. It's so not what I want, and I know it's the challenge of doing almost straight embroidery on it.

Doing straight embroidery IS a stretch for me. It's fairly straightforward, which for me = boring. Mostly because I do pictorial work and I get bored easily/quickly. So I end up using a jillion colors...which helps break up the monotomy. Then I realize I have a mishmash. And then sometimes I add more (and for me more isn't necessarily better). But since I don't normally rip out, I just let it stay.

I only really rip if I reallllly f'ed it up. and the stitching is really bad with spaces.

What I like about this piece: The red fish. The body of the big fish/mermaid. The idea of the silver labordorite fish and their little silver tails.

What I don't like about the piece: The carved seahorse. I mean I love the seahorse but not in the page. If I bead a good bezel for it, I lose all the spines. I prefer to hide the hole at the top...and by the time I finish it, that will be hidden. I don't like the sea currents.

Things that are ok: The seaweed is ok, not great.

There is no symbology to this piece. It's just an undersea thingy. I didn't get to go on vacation this summer so I thought maybe a bit of summer might make me feel like I at least acknowledged it.

Ok, I should go finish this thing so I can post it in the next day or so. Here it is, all finished and posted.

5 comments:

Robin said...

Are you being a bit harsh on yourself? You tried to bring a vacation into your life, and now maybe you're criticizing it because it isn't real enough? Sounds to me like you've had a pretty good learning experience with this month's work. Personally, I like it a lot... better than most underwater scenes, and I love how you did the seahorse. Well, there's my 2 cents worth ;>) Robin A.

vivage said...

Yes, maybe I am, the struggle to get out what I wanted to convey never really worked. Even now I look at it and feel the tubulance.

BUT I am happy that it hit a sweet spot for you. I love it when someone else feels an emotion out of any of my pieces.

Thank you.

Katherine said...

I agree with Robin--Maybe if you set it aside for a while and then look again it'll look better to you. I find I like my work a lot better after it's aged a bit. I can look at it more objectively.

I think a lot of artists, including myself, can only see how their work falls short of their vision, and can't look at it more objectively and see where it succeeds--often in ways they never thought of consciously while they were making it.

vivage said...

I struggle with not crowding my beads in straight embroidery. I've gotten better - by making concious effort to leave space on either side of the line of beads. I can see the progression in later months.

So mostly what I don't like is the ocean currents because they are so crowded. I *think* I'd like it better if they were smooth and placid as I imagined the currents to be.

But I learned a lot out of the frustration of crowded beads!

vivage said...

I struggle with not crowding my beads in straight embroidery. I've gotten better - by making concious effort to leave space on either side of the line of beads. I can see the progression in later months.

So mostly what I don't like is the ocean currents because they are so crowded. I *think* I'd like it better if they were smooth and placid as I imagined the currents to be.

But I learned a lot out of the frustration of crowded beads!