Things aren't looking so good right now? Turn it to the wall.

Things aren’t looking too good?  Turn it to the wall.

I teach pastel classes to brave people.  I try to explain that it is about the shape of the colors in your reference.  You need to learn to paint what you see, not what you are looking at.  Sounds strange but it is about how shapes come together to make a recognizable image.  Remember those grid drawings they used to offer in game books?  You were to draw the dark squares in numerical order and if you did it right, you ended up with a picture.  It is a little like that.

Even after all of that, my students have a hard time seeing what they have accomplished.  We try different tricks to help; drawing it upside down, looking at it from across the room.  In the end, after spending 2 hours on their image; sometimes they still can’t see it.  When that happens, I tell them “Take it home and turn it to the wall for a few days.  Don’t look at it, wait for 4 to 7 days and then; take a look.”

I learned this from a piece I did years ago.  It was the biggest thing I had done and I would get lost in the details.  I finished it at an outdoor show where I could walk across the street and look at it.  I was finally able to see what it was looking like as a whole.  After that, I was able to finish it.  I still didn’t actually see what I had done until I took it the framer.  I didn’t look at it for a week and when I did see it, it was in a different place and I saw what I had accomplished.

Now, I could only see it for a minute; then my artistic brain started looking at the areas I had a hard time with but; for that minute?  Success. It takes effort to see your life in a different perspective.  Vacations are supposed to do that but mostly the right vacation makes you want to escape and never return.  So how do you put your life in a different perspective? Stand in someone else’s shoes? Take a short sabbatical doing something for others in need?  Try something to help you take a new look at what you have.  Find a way to turn your life to the wall so when you return to it, you see what you have and a genuine view of the good and the bad.  Doesn’t mean you don’t need to change something but maybe you can figure out what needs to be different.