Birdhouses & Lilies, Take 2 - Off the Wall Friday

Well obviously, they were right when they said that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery!  After posting last week about the lack of motivation, it was like a weight had been lifted and I had no problem being productive this week.  Everyday I spent sometime in my studio, even if it was for only 45 minutes.  Finally!  It felt good!

I worked this week on my annual lily art show entry.  With the lack of creativity and motivation this year, I decided to rehash an old piece, Birdhouse & Lilies.  My husband said, "Didn't you already do that one?"  Well. . . yes. . . .and no.  I originally made the piece six years ago for the art show, then decided that the focus  was the birdhouses and not the lilies.  So I decided not to enter it.  Not to mention, I had fallen in love with it and didn't want to put it up for sale.  Remaking it would be a pleasure, but I still felt guilty of not coming up with a new idea! 

Now working in series is normal for an artist.  But this takes it one step further.   You're basically doing several versions of the exact same subject matter.  For instance, here is Van Gogh's four different versions of the same windmill, Le Moulin de la Galette (1886) each listed in their respective museum home.

You can see how he played with different perspectives and scale of the windmill.

So on that note, I decided not to feel guilty of rehashing an old idea.  Obviously if it was a good enough for Van Gogh, it was good enough for me!  Besides there was always a part of me that wanted to make the lilies the star of the piece rather than the birdhouses.  Also, I wanted to make the lilies look a bit more life like.  I always felt that they look too cartoonish in the first piece.

So in the new version, I cropped the piece to highlight the lilies, did a new updated version of the lilies and made the piece over all smaller.  I changed the size of the piece because this one is made especially to be sold.  Not only will it take a shorter time to make it (keeping the price down) but not everyone has as much wall space to fill as me!!  For that matter, with the cropping the piece, it changed the orientation of it from landscape to portrait.

Ohhh and in case you're wondering how I got the shape of the lilies this time, I already had a file of photos of lilies that had been printed out in various sizes.  From there I made line drawings and then made  tracing paper patterns.  Because they were tracing paper, they were easily put onto just the right spot of hand dyed fabric to be fussy cut.



So what have been up to creatively?