Art Talk
WIPs, Backlogs, & Blocks
Artists can seem a bit scatterbrained, especially to non-creatives, as we often have many in-progress projects at once. That’s compounded when you work in multiple mediums like I do. I currently have roughly a dozen works in progress, or WIPs, and will frequently start new pieces before finishing a WIP.
Some of the backlog is due to time constraints. I have two 16x20 canvases in progress that have been slowly worked on since last year. I have two so I can maximize my painting time. Layers often need to dry and jumping between canvases can help prevent wasting time watching paint dry. Painting also requires lots of setup and cleanup versus other mediums so if I’m planning to paint I need to make sure I have a solid block of time to do so. Usually, that’s a minimum of two hours to really get into the work and make noticeable progress on it which can be tricky to manage as a mom.
Lady Tahoma is actually an interesting case of WIPs for me. There are technically two of them. I originally was working on it in pastels on a 5x8 scale alongside other similar pieces and felt it didn’t do the subject justice so I went bigger (way bigger) and switched to acrylics to give some texture to it as well.
Art WIPs get left in backlogs for various other reasons beyond time. A sudden depletion of creativity or motivation, the dreaded Artist Block, is a frequent culprit. Losing interest in the specific medium, often just temporarily, and needing a change of pace can also result in a WIP thrown onto the back burner. This is usually called a slump versus a true block.
Artist blocks and slumps are a part of being an artist and are not a sign you’re a bad artist at all. Every single artist gets them no matter how epic their work is. The key is what you do about it. My go-to solution is to switch gears. This can mean jumping mediums or just changing what I’m drawing. If I get stuck on character art I switch to drawing florals or other still life setups. If drawing has me stuck I’ll break out my pastels or charcoal and do more expressive ‘messy’ pieces to loosen up.
Artists will have WIPs that change to ‘abandoned’ on occasion. When an artist hates the piece because it doesn’t look right or the reality falls short of the expectation it is often abandoned. Some will tear out and destroy those pieces they feel are failures, but I was encouraged by my art professors not to. I was skeptical at first, but have found I’m often taking those failures and reworking or ‘Frankensteining’ from them. I tried to do a DTIYS recently and just did not like how either of my two attempts were turning out. I will tuck them aside and return to them later, not to make the same character, but to pull the parts I like from them for a completely new piece.
Sometimes the only good thing about an abandoned piece is simply the subject/idea itself. If you destroy the piece, all of the potential is lost too. I drew a centaur-like creature back in the early 90s and it was… atrocious to be honest. I kept it and in 2006, I redrew the creature using the digital art skills I learned in college. It was substantially better, though I still don’t think highly of it. I’m considering redrawing her yet again because my skill has developed still further. This evolution is only possible if you don’t destroy your ‘bad’ works and is actually very helpful in giving an artist a clear look at how they’ve improved over time. By redrawing this same piece over and over, I’m seeing not only my improvement, but my subtly changing style as well.
Seeing visual improvement over time can help quiet that inner critic that plagues all creatives. We can get too focused on the now and think we aren’t getting anywhere or are ever going to be ‘good enough’. It is like that with painting, you can get so caught up in the details you often forget to step back and see the whole canvas. If you are an artist, know that you are already good enough regardless of where you’re at in your artistic journey and you are making progress with every attempt no matter how glacial it seems. If you know an artist, be sure to remind them of that, we need to hear it even if our reaction to it doesn’t seem like we do.
As always, comments and questions are more than welcome! Feel free to share your own go-to solutions for blocks and slumps or share some of your WIPs.
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Really like Amongst the Flowers. So good