Abandoned

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

I’d tell you that Leonardo da Vinci said that, but according to Quote Investigator, it’s been said different ways by several different people – so I’ll leave it at that.

What I love about the quote is that I was looking for something about things being abandoned, but I didn’t want any gloom and doom.

Not only is this quote not a downer, it is great! Now I know why I always feel that my work is incomplete – because I abandon it!

I’ve been trying to play with the black and white minimalist idea for days, but I’ve not only abandoned the things that I’ve created thus far, I have literally rejected them.

I believe that the word “trying” may be key here. My favorite things usually come when I’m enjoying myself, not when I am “trying.”

Anyway… I wanted to tell you that I am definitely abandoning my last story – the Voice in My Head. For now anyway. I have “tried and tried,” but I am not getting anywhere.

I thought what I might do instead is revisit every story I’ve never finished here (I think there are at least 3 or 4 ) – and shorten ‘the ideas’ behind those stories to shape them into “one post size” short stories. Maybe that will work, and maybe it won’t, but it should be fun to ‘try’.

I’m happy about my image tonight. It’s slightly minimalist, but it has a dark, messy flair that adds to the idea of abandonment.

I used Illustrator for the boat and the sky, and then I took it to Photoshop to add the tall grass. After that, I added a paint effect in the BeCasso app.

While it’s messier than what I usually like to do, it worked well for this as it added smudge marks to the boat and took away its hard edges at the same time. The scene is kind of cliché, but I think the paint effect helps it look a little more unique.

To add to my pleasure, while I was messing around with brushes in Photoshop (for the grass), I stumbled on some really exciting effect brushes – so you may see some wild abstracts in the near future!

In other news… I’ve made the decision to take a hiatus from college after my current class ends. There are still some 30+ units to go in my current program, and – to be honest – I am TIRED!

That being said, I’m feeling happy. Not crazy happy, more like calm happy. I say that because I also stumbled on a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh today…

“Many people think excitement is happiness…But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.”

When I read that I thought to myself… “oh my God, that is so me!” Sometimes I feel like I experience subtle forms of the ups and downs that come with having bipolar disorder – just not that severe.

My happiness often feels like this excitement that he refers to – like riding a roller coaster. That experience, in itself, can make you tired!

I would love to take this time off of school to focus on experiencing this peaceful form of happiness.

Anyway… I know that’s a lot of talk about ‘me’ for one post – but I figured I’d get it all out now so I can move on and think about something else.

As always… Thank you for reading or viewing – I hope you enjoyed something here!

-Janet