Art Process: When Disaster Shows Promise and When Promise Turns to Disaster

This (above) is my disaster that ended up showing promise. I was working on something else in the art studio today. This was just an afterthought. It was beckoning me somehow. I dont work on it often, and lately, it seems I only add a bit here or there after I get done with something else. As is typical, I usually have multiple projects going on at once.

This one above, which I just NOW decided to name, “Disaster Eclipsed by Promise,” I originally started for my office at work. I started it sometime last year or the year before. ☺️🙄 It is made of collage papers,  pours, ribbons, beads, self leveling gel, etc. It really has a lot of layers on it and is actually done on watercolor paper. To be honest, it was a disaster!! It ended up getting muddy, muted, ugly, and boring. It doesn’t even lay flat. I just didn’t like it! But as is also my style, I see it with potential. Every disaster just has to be transformed!!! That’s my quote of the day! I see a “God-lesson” in that! No matter how messed up our lives get, God can turn it into something beautiful!  Today, I just added some Caran D’ache neocolor 1 crayons, which seemed to revive it. It still looks ugly, but it’s actually taking a decent photo, and now I see potential.  I plan to add some sprays, distress inks, and maybe the watercolor crayons as well. If It continues to be ugly, I’ll just keep working until it’s not. I say you can never have too many layers! Ha!

Below was the other project I worked on before the one above. While the wax resist crayons added some redeeming qualities to the art above, I used the water soluable ones below on top of alcohol inks and on top of  some gel pens and permanent markers. I sprayed the alcohol inks with fixadent and then put clear gesso over top of it before adding the Caran D’ache neocolor II crayons. That worked just fine. Nothing smeared. I wanted to bring in some blues and greens and more yellows and purples with the water-soluble crayons. I was trying to convey joy and mostly had reds, oranges, and yellows with a touch of purple. I didn’t really like the look when I added the water. Maybe because the wetted crayons were so dull and the rest of the alcohol inks were so shiny.  I knew I was taking a risk, and I tried to research this, but I didn’t come across anybody who tried to put water soluable crayons on top of alcohol inks. So then, since I didn’t like the look of adding water, I left it alone and used the water soluable crayons like a regular crayon – the wax resist kind without the water. I should have just used the wax resist crayons. I had it, right? But I was inside at this time, and my wax resist crayons were in the shed, and I was feeling kind of tired. So then when I finished with the crayons, I thought, I’ll just spray it with fixadent to keep them from smearing, which was in the shed, so I went there anyway! I really wanted that layer to be isolated for possibly future work and more layers, so THEN I decided to use self leveling gel. I knew it was a RISK. I knew it could smear, but I was willing to take the risk because I had scans and photos of earlier versions. The self leveling gel, which makes it shiny, seemed fine at first, not to be smearing… but before I even realized it, I noticed there was a slight smear (last image), so we will see how it looks in the morning. I’m sure I can continue to add on to it and fix it right up… Besides, that seems to be my specialty; part of my process – mess it up and fix it again! Ha! That’s actually a trauma response called “Doing and Undoing.” It just means I have some more healing to do. I’ve actually healed quite a bit, but with the type of complicated and complex teauma I endured, theres always more layers that need to be peeled and more healing that needs to be done. I feel like I’m at 80% healed after 27 years of healing and 11 years of direct trauma- informed therapy.

I’m sure I can save this artwork somehow. So now I know fixadent doesn’t always save something from smearing, but I wonder if I waited longer if it would have worked or what would have worked aside of me using the wax resist crayons to begin with?