Take a Step Back - Motivation Monday

Take A Step Back

As an artist,

sometimes it's hard to see

 where the problems are in a painting. 

The answer is almost always,

"Take a step back".

A painting is meant to be viewed at a distance of 6 feet.

If you're closer than that things get muddled.

Unfortunately,

there are few people with 6 foot arms,

so we're often on top of our work,

and can't see the problem.

We're so close we can't see the forest for the trees.

So we need to take a step or two back.

Then we can begin to see where the problem is.

 This is about where we are when painting.

From here I can't see the problem.

I need to take a step or two back.

 When I step back I can see the whole painting.

If I needed to fix something,

this is where I'll see it.

I took a step back in time this past week.

My husband, Jim has always wanted a Victrola.

I found one in an online auction 

at www.resettledlife.com.

This is a great business to help people 

who are trying to downsize their lives. 

Amy helps people find the accommodations they are seeking and she holds an online auction of items they are not taking with them.

That's where I found this wonderful gift for my husband.

 

It is so interesting to see how things used to be made.

How they worked.

And after all these years how they still work.

I showed the Victrola to my son, and he was explaining it to his 7 year old daughter.

He was telling her, this is how people used to listen to music.

Then when it started to play she laughed and giggled

with delight.

I told her it was like a CD.

My son looked at me like I had 3 heads.

Then he said,

"She doesn't know what a CD is.  We download music".

Boy am I goofy.

It's also amazing how far we have come,

 technologically speaking, in a short time.

All these things have been built on the advances of the ones before hand.

But sometimes we have to back up and look where we've been

to see where we're going.

We can look at art we did years ago,

and usually we're not too happy with it.

We see all the mistakes and things we didn't get right.

But, what we should see is,

how far we've come in our art journey.

We are better,

we are technically more sound,

we are more experienced,

we know more.

What do you do to get unstuck?

What fun things from the past do you enjoy?

Click HERE to view my online art course.

Click HERE to see my available art. 

Thanks for stopping by today.