Using the Puzzle Piece Approach:
Thank you, Robert Genn!

REPOSTED because it's applicable to today.

Creating is an interesting process.  In each stage of a creation you get an entirely different feel.  And sometimes our own moods can show up in the creation.  I liked the tentative pencil drawing of the firs picture at left.  But when I painted color in she looked hard and impatient in the second picture.  I felt she needed a lower hairline to soften her look in the third pictures but the eyes weren't right then.   So I painted out the eyes. 

Something I have learned over time is to use one base coat color while I get the features right.   It makes repainting areas much easier.  I used to just repaint the whole face every time, but sometimes now I approach it more like a puzzle.  See Robert Genn's post about the puzzle technique in making paintings. I wasted a lot of time feeling like I had to repaint the whole face every time I wanted to fix a passage. When I get one piece that feels okay I leave it.  Using and keeping the base color really helps with that.  

I'm not sure this head is exactly where I want it.  Each time you change a creation, you gain and lose some aspects.   Each time you change one thing, you have a whole new creation in a way, because the 'puzzle pieces" interact differently with just one change.  And that is a good metaphor for life in general.  Change one thing, and everything else feels different, too.  That can have both negative and positive implications.  

I am learning to accept the way I create.  I am never satisfied with my first attempt.  When I change one thing it makes me notice another, and I change that, and then I notice another.  It's a chain reaction.    ;-)  And I sometimes still do a whole repaint.  Because sometimes you really do need a clean slate.  

Happy Creating!


3 comments:

Jan Conwell said...

I found a gallon of semi gloss (always hunting in the mis-tints, you never know) and it was just about the perfect doll face color. So I use it through the entire process, and no worries about using it up. It's very tough for toys, and I like that too. But once in a while, I want to vary it, so I've made up largish bottles of different shades, light to dark, yellow to pink to brown, and it does indeed make corrections a whole lot easier!

Jan Conwell said...

That's happened to me a lot lately too...my post on switching doll wigs isn't exactly the same, but it sure changed both dolls, and the domino effect that followed required some big changes as a result. Good luck with your puzzles, both doll related and otherwise.

Dixie Redmond said...

Thanks, Jan. Yes, life is full of puzzles. :-) I'm trying to learn not to to take the whole thing apart just to find one piece. One missing puzzle piece right now is SPRING NEEDS TO COME.


"Do not let what you cannot do
keep you from doing what you can do."

John Wooden