Frustrated

It's past midnight, I've been painting for 6 hours straight, my thumb hurts like crazy and right now I'm pondering either pushing it for another hour to finish all the backgrounds and remove the masking, wait for tomorrow hoping that nothing goes worse, or simply throw them all to the paper bin right now.

A couple of hours ago I realized I wouldn't be able to finish them all today so instead of finishing the last step on 3 of them I just jumped into painting the details of one and check how it'd look completely finished, so I finished the background and removed the masking fluid, and IT HAS STAINED THE PAPER, dear Universe, seriously??? C'mon!!!

I'm so frustrated right now! all that work freehand masking them all, doing my best to have straight lines without any pencil in there, just to avoid exactly this! argh!! Of course this has to happen when I'm painting several pieces at one time, why waste one hour of work when I can waste 6, right? And I don't even want to start thinking on what I'm going to do to save those edges in the next batch.

I'm trying to find something positive to share about this experience but I'm at a loss, maybe that now I know how not to use this masking fluid? Maybe that there's no shame in sharing the failures? "that'll show you, Teresa. no pain no gain!" :(

Sorry for the tantrum, I'll turn off the rant mode right now. I better go to sleep and maybe tomorrow, with fresh eyes, I'll be able to see this with a positive attitude.

Tooooonta!

It's being a hell of a week at work, it would have been nice if it were just at work but today the world has slapped me in the face again with my inability for being a people's person, yeah world, as if I didn't know before... so I feel like sharing this page of my journal, who's feeling like a fool? I AM! good for me.

What to learn in the learning zone

Some days ago I posted a question at the Learning Zone at Wet Canvas, I'm pretty aware about all the conflicts and changes that have been around there and I turned into a lurker in that site for some years, yet now I needed some input about a medium for the painting I'm planning so... what a better place to ask, right? I opened a thread asking about Schmincke Aqua Series Watercolor Medium, Aqua Fix, 60 ml. which is listed as a WATERCOLOR MEDIUM, somehow yesterday, while I was happily working on the painting a war started at WetC, stating that the Learning Zone was not the right place for the thread because we ended up talking about other choices since nobody had experience with the aqua fix.

The moderator stated that the thread should be moved to another forum, ok, since it's turned this way and got some input about acrylics, even if I don't agree with the suggestion that it should have been opened in a different place than the learning zone - because aqua fix IS a WATERCOLOR MEDIUM - I agree that it could be moved to other forum at this point, but why start a war? why the learning zone of the watercolor forum is not the right place to start a thread asking about a watercolor medium? I'd say there's not a better place!

I hate that probably they didn't even take a second look to the first post, I hate that they are taking it to a personal level just because one of the persons who suggested acrylics was Ness, I hate that they openly say that the new members shouldn't have an opinion because they are "too new" to know about the previous conflict about watercolor/acrylic, in fact they shouldn't even be linking the input as alternatives to aqua fix as an attempt to bring back acrylics to the watercolor forum.

Now the thread is closed because it was going out of control, before I could even post an answer there, that's probably what has bothered me the most, if it's not the right forum any more please move it, if you don't want Nick to post and offer help to others tell him openly you want to ban him, I must say he and Walter gave me a good alternative to what I was actually asking when others including the ones that has started the war couldn't or didn't take the time to, I can't be most grateful to them, thank you guys, without the input in that thread I probably wouldn't have started the painting yet.

I'm not usually an opinionated person looking for conflict, more like a live and let live kind of person, but I do have an opinion, and I do want to respect the rules, and I did want to tell them to move the thread if they considered it necessary after it turning into a chat about other mediums and at the same time stating that it was indeed the right forum to start the thread, I wanted to thank the people who offered alternative suggestions for their help, they took the time to research and post to help someone they don't even know, and when I'm about to post it I CAN'T BECAUSE THE THREAD IS CLOSED. Well, thank you all for your time and your knowledge and your willing to help, as for myself I don't think any of my questions in the future will be fit in that so called "learning zone", if you can't ask about watercolor materials... what can you ask about?

End of rant, back to normal mode.

Note to self: FOCUS

I truly thought I wouldn't screw up until at least being in the middle of the painting process but, surprise! I forgot about the size of my reference, that I measured, decided on the size and resized it just YESTERDAY, and adjusted it to the right margin, now I have almost an inch of empty paper on the left and nothing on the right, and I don't want to loose those patterns on the right because they add balance, so I guess I'll just have to paint to the edge and crop the extra paper on the left even if that leaves me with a border too even compared to the other three.

And the kanji, I forgot to transfer one kanji! right in the middle of a lantern! FO·CUS TERESA! FOCUS!!! Now that I've taken some time from the painting table to rant I'm ready to continue, maybe I can start applying color today.

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14