Friday, December 4, 2009

Robert Genn on Reinvention

I was very interested this morning to read in Robert Genn’s newsletter his thoughts on the same topic I addressed yesterday – that of going back to an older piece and working again from the same idea, but with considered cogitation!
  He writes: “While appreciating what you did right in the past, free your mind to reinvent and refine in areas previously not thought of.”

As well as the points I made yesterday about removing unnecessary detail, adding interest where it lacked it and needed it, making the colours richer, subtler and more varied and overall being looser…he also advocates looking at every aspect of the piece and seeing if you can push it in a slightly different direction.  Instead of working more quickly, try to work more slowly…but with a great flourish.  Definitely loosen up where things were too tight.  Address the negative areas ( I really didn’t have any in my first piece, but tried to get the effect of some in the second) and check out the focal area and the track of vision – was it strong enough?  or alternatively, was it too obvious?  Was there some mystery?  or if things were too vague, could they be clarified?

Reworking a piece is a good time to take risks!
This could be the start of a series…

If you have been, thanks for reading!  Elizabeth
PS I still havn’t figured out whether or not to include the chain on Chain Cross #2, I think I’m going to send the client pictures both ways and let him choose!

7 comments:

Deb Lacativa said...

And here I've been thinking about gathering up a load of UFOs and making "gasp" a blanket!

Elizabeth Barton said...

a quilt by any other name....!!

Jackie said...

Question: I understand the value of re-examining and re-working a piece. Hopefully I've learned something in this venture. But I am unclear if you are dismantling a quilt or making a new one on the same basic design, tweaking it here and there as you wish. So is it indeed the same physical piece with new things added or a new one? Thanks for the mental challenge you always present for looking at our own work.

Elizabeth Barton said...

it's an entirely new piece, the first one now lives in California somewhere! This one is quite different. though several times I have remade a piece, usually by cropping it heavily, adding pigment and overlays.

Tangled Stitch said...

There are quite a few pieces I made a while ago that I have been looking at with new eyes, thanks for the inspiration of perhaps trying it.

Unknown said...

The Foundation Trialogy

thats what happens when a artist re-works on his work.

isac asimov's

The Foundation Trialogy


still the best fiction trialogy
apart from the J.R.R Tolkin's

The Lord Of The Rings.

---

he first written the scratch around 12 years before until a publisher asked him to write a fiction and he read the scratch again set to start on the basis and the outcome is you know right.

Jackie said...

You wrote, "you have much more sense of what it is about the image that is important to you..." I thought I was the only one who was often mistaken about WHAT IT WAS that I liked about a certain scene or image! When will I learn? Thanks for helping me along the way.