Time and Distance

Last night's class was a little disappointing, for me. I wasn't able to produce the kind of work I saw my classmates getting to and I felt a bit amateurish. It wasn't until the class was over and I was putting my materials away that I really saw my work and I was surprised at what I had done.

The class was all about light and mapping tonal values. We worked on brown paper for the first time - I have a roll of 'Postal Wrapping Paper' I bought at Meijer's. We used Conte crayon white, black and sanguine to represent the high, low and midtones, respectively, in a black and white photograph Marilyn gave us to work from. I wasn't pleased, at all, with what I had done. The next exercise was to do the same from life - an egg, a candle and a cup were set out, under a strong light, and we were to once again to reproduce what we saw in tone - not necessarily an accurate pictorial representation of the items but a mapping of tonal values. I think I got the egg pretty good before class ended but the rest of it kinda sucked. Anyway, class came to an end and, in putting my roll of brown wrapping paper away, I saw my 'photograph' work from a distance, for the first time, and I remarked that I had done better than I had thought, now that I could see the work from a distance. Marilyn commented that I needed to remember that I was also seeing it an hour later - that there was a distance in time as well as space.

I did okay. It was better than I had thought. I guess sometimes you need to look back at things, in time and distance, in order to properly appreciate them. So I guess the lesson is to NOT be too critical of what you're in the middle of doing. Wait. Look back. Give it some time and distance.