Sept to Liz - Grrrrrr - Steve Hay

 

The candles are a little better - but the last name should have gone the full width. That would have been better but it would still have been boring. I might give one more try on the back of the envelope and then I will be done-done-done with candle writing with candle stamps. I'll still make words out of candles - but I won't combine them with these stamps. Unless --- there is a first name and a last name made up of perfect letters that I can create something that has the right scale and proportion. The big LIZ was a pretty good start - but it needed to be a longer name. Maybe I'll do ELIZABETH and show how that name done super big would be the right combination with the stamps.

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The day after I wrote that first pp I did flip it over and do a rough draft of a better idea. The solution to a scale problem is to make something bigger. All the candles on the first one was just too much of a good thing. The design needed some contrast. It needed something soft and loopy. This would have been so much better. The LIZ could have been filled in....but I'm writing this on Sept 10th and the month will be half over by the time this reaches her. It's amazing how fast the days go. I need to figure out my October envelopes - and then do my combo Nov/Dec mailing. The year is basically over for me.

Three stamps and the three letters in LIZ would have worked very nicely if I had started out with that idea....

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Did I already write about Stephen Hay? A while back I pondered how every month I end up with a range of liking as well as disliking my exchange envelopes and I wondered if there were any artists who could plan and execute every piece of work so that all of it was equally satisfying. I thought of someone who I've worked with and who does extensive planning on all his projects. To me, he seemed like a person who would only produce work that was up to his standards.

I tracked him down and asked him if he was satisfied with everything he produced or if he had pieces that were not going as planned and that he would eventually toss. He thought about it for a while - and then said that he has works that are unfinished and will probably never be finished. This implies that he, too, believes there is always a way to remedy something that is not pleasing to the artist's eye.

Then we talked about the watercolorists we know who prepare stacks of 20 - 30 pieces of stretched watercolor paper on boards. With watercolor, you have to wait for it to dry so you work on several pieces at a time. We both know people who say that out of 20-30 works - they might only get 5 or 6 that they deem worthy of keeping or selling. Neither of us were ever drawn to watercolor. We also know watercolorists who paint from photographs and have techniques that are close to *paint-by-number* so they probably have mostly keepers.

Stephen works in oils - so there is endless opportunity to change things. He also does pencil drawings that are figure studies - so they are planned out and layered - and I guess he doesn't screw up on those. He also does a lot of botanical studies with gilded backgrounds. He said he has done so many of those that he can approach them knowing that they will always turn out as he intends.

I suppose if I took time to run around and have this conversation with lots of artists I'd get lots of stories - but - I'm not sure what we would do with that information. I don't even remember how I got off on this topic. Maybe I was pondering that *thing* where we commit to doing our monthly envelopes - and then we ponder whether we like what we've done. Let's stick with the theory that it's not the content that matters - it's the process. We don't do envelopes to create masterpieces - we do it to clear out the cobwebs from the obligatory activities of daily life.