Pivot!

Today I had it in my head that I was going to draw/paint a batch of umbrellas. To get myself into the umbrella zone, I brought out a bunch of acrylics and a big piece of paper. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing. Nothing went wrong with the umbrella idea, really. The resulting umbrella was fine, it just wasn’t what I had in mind, and the process wasn’t satisfying at all. The itch was not scratched. It has been raining here SO MUCH lately, so the umbrella idea wasn’t too far fetched. It just fell flat.

Pivot!

Way more fun to draw than umbrellas, obviously

So what does a frustrated me do after some idea falls flat? I sat with that question for a couple minutes and then whipped out a smaller piece of paper (a smaller blank page staring me in the face is less overwhelming sometimes than its larger counterpart).

Paper: check. What to draw? My dog! I love my dog (you may have caught on to that by now if you’ve been paying attention even the slightest bit).

Laying down some paint

My dog is super fun to draw, so she makes appearances in my artwork often.  She’s a character, and it’s also helpful that she has super colorful markings to match her personality.

I mean… look at her though, aw

I decided to document the process from start to finish for this particular piece - consider this your virtual flipbook of how eight colorful Kiwis were made.

I know Kiwi won’t be any help with all this rain, but she definitely helped wash away the frustration clouds today after my umbrella mission flopped!