What To Do When Your Artwork Isn't Working
Have you ever been two weeks into a piece of artwork and realised it still isn't working?
You have added more detail, tried another brush and moved things around. You may have deleted enough layers to make you wonder whether you have spent more time undoing the artwork than creating it.
Eventually, you reach the point where you have to admit that the answer might not be adding something else.
You may need to take something away.
That is where I found myself with the January illustration for my Far North Queensland calendar.
The idea for the January illustration
I am creating the calendar as part of Laura Jane Illustrations' Creative Pals. Our theme for this quarter is seasons, so I decided to base mine on my experiences in Far North Queensland.
I have seen cassowaries and fed rock wallabies there, so I already had plenty of memories to pull from. January would feature a cassowary travelling in a canoe made from a fan palm, with butterflies leading the way and a few other collected treasures coming along for the adventure.
I drew the January sketch first and planned to colour it so I could establish the style for the rest of the calendar. That seemed sensible. Once January was working, I would have a visual direction to follow for the remaining months.
The cassowary and his little canoe were fine. The problem started when I decided he needed an entire scene around him.
January is the wet season, so surely he needed water
Because January is part of the wet season in Far North Queensland, I thought the cassowary needed to be travelling through water.
I showed the illustration to Paul, and he suggested bringing the water all the way down the page beneath the calendar section. It was a great idea. The water worked beautifully and gave the page a sense of movement.
Then I reached the trees in the background.
They did not work beautifully. They didn't really work at all.
I tried different versions, deleted layers and began again. I looked for inspiration, experimented with other styles and changed brushes. None of it made the background feel right.
The original concept sounded good, and parts of it looked good. That made it harder to admit that the complete scene wasn't coming together.
The 3am realisation
After almost two weeks of trying to make the scene work, I woke up at three o'clock in the morning with the answer.
My cassowary did not need the water.
He did not need the trees either.
The cassowary in his fan-palm canoe, with the butterflies and the other small details, was the scene. That was the part carrying the story and the character. Everything I had been trying to build around him was making the illustration more complicated without making it better.
Sometimes we go all the way around the houses trying to solve a problem because we assume something is missing. We search for another technique or another detail when the work may be asking us to remove the thing that is getting in its way.
Removing something is not giving up
Taking the background away does not mean I failed to draw the scene I imagined.
It means I paid attention when the illustration told me that the original plan was no longer the best one.
There is a difference between abandoning an idea because it becomes difficult and recognising that you are forcing something that does not belong. The difficulty is working out which one is happening while you are in the middle of it.
A useful question is: Am I trying to solve the artwork, or am I trying to protect my original idea?
When you have invested time in a direction, it is tempting to keep adding to it because removing a major element can feel like wasting everything you have already done. That time has not disappeared, though. It has helped you understand what the work needs.
The experiments were not wasted
I cannot say I wasted those two weeks, because I didn't.
During that time, I tried different styles and brushes. I learned more about the look I want for the calendar and discovered what doesn't fit it. I saw how the water could extend below the calendar, even if that idea does not belong on this particular page.
Creative experiments do not have to appear in the finished artwork to have been useful.
The problem comes when we continue in the wrong direction because we want to justify the time already spent. A few days of experimentation can teach you something. Another fortnight spent forcing the same idea may only make you resent the work.
The time is not wasted if it helps you find the solution and you allow yourself to change direction once you see it.
Look at what you could remove
If your artwork is not working, pause before adding anything else.
Look at the piece and ask:
Which part contains the real story?
What did I add because I assumed it had to be there?
Is one element competing with the thing I want people to notice?
Am I trying to rescue an idea because I have already spent time on it?
What happens if I hide that layer and leave it hidden for a while?
You don't need to delete anything immediately. Turn off a layer, cover part of the page or make a duplicate before experimenting. Give yourself the chance to see the simpler version without feeling as though you have destroyed your work.
Sometimes you will discover that the missing detail really was the problem. Other times, the space left behind will let the important part of the artwork breathe.
The simpler scene may tell the story better
My January illustration does not need a fully rendered landscape to tell you that the cassowary is setting off on an adventure through Far North Queensland.
His fan-palm canoe and the butterflies leading the way already do that. A small shadow, a few pencil ripples or splashes may be enough to ground him without turning the page into the scene I spent two weeks trying to force.
The background was not the story. The cassowary was.
If you have been working on something for a while and it still doesn't feel right, what could you remove? I would love to know whether taking something away helped you find the idea that had been there all along.
If you enjoy honest stories about the decisions, detours and discoveries behind creative work, you can join my Stories from the Dotty Side newsletter at jodraper.au/stories-from-the-dotty-side.
