Mistakes To Laugh Over

I do stupid stuff all the time and even more so as I hang out in my golden years.
I paint without glasses on, only needing them for distance.....
When it's time to step back and get a good look, I cannot find them of course....so I break the moment and start hunting them down..by the time i get to the bathroom and look in the mirror, they are always hanging on the neck of my shirt. duh.

The specifics don't really matter...it's just important to keep laughing at one's foibles...best medicine eveh!

The native American angel was rendered using a quill pen and inkwell. I was virtually finished when a large inkblot stained the thigh. I had darken the whole drawing to match the spot. that was back in 1981.....a long time ago....in a place far far away.

I began painting Elvis Presley the other day and realized I needed to step away from it because it was starting to look more like Bill Clinton!! LOL

Deb, there is another joke there somewhere....funny!

Yes! Thought of that too!! ;))

Was Elvis on velvet?

I painted the perfect hand, it was beautiful in all ways and took me forever to get it there. My mother was looking at it and she said, "You know you did an excellent job dear, but is there a reason you painted 6 fingers on it?"

Love it! Laughing is such good medicine :)

I've learned the hard way a couple of times to save and save often when it comes to my digital work, but sometimes when I'm in the flow of things I just forget. One of those times I had been working on a piece for about 8 hours straight, totally in the zone, and when I was done I took a break to use the restroom. When I came back, it dawned on me that I might have forgotten to save, so I went to do so, and Photoshop crashed on me. I was gut sick. I went to look for the file, and I found it, back at the very beginning stages of work. I decided to quit for the day and tackle it again in the morning. The next day, I spent another 7 or 8 hours on it, and finished it again and saved it this time, but when I went to find it in the folder, I also found the one that I had completed the day before, totally finished. I had just saved it under a different name and completely forgot.

D'oh!

So my question to you April, which one was the better of the two?

I do so many dumb things that it's difficult to remember any one of them.

One that I always watch out for stems from the fact that my super glue and nasal spray came in similar containers. I keep them both in the same drawer in my computer desk. An accident waiting to happen!

Murray, at least if you use the super glue you wont have to worry about blowing your nose..it will be very well contained!

But if I sneeze, I'll blow my ears out!

Oh my I could write a book of stupid art ideas...there was the totem, the papier mache pig, the beautiful cement sculpted fountain, the bean mosaics, the bathroom mural...that was the most devastating...I feel pretty safe with the digital painting...lol hope I didn't just jinx myself.

Murray move that glue!!! I can totally see that happening!

I lost about two months of animation design when my hard drive failed. I purchased a nice backup drive after that.

"Recently I was painting with watercolor and rinsed my brush off in my coffee instead of the water! Coffee actually has a good color to it if thats what your looking for."

How does it taste? Starbucks is always looking for new flavors.... and one that has it's own color....? Well now, how could they turn that down?

LOL, I'm loving this thread. @ Sydne - you gave me a belly laugh with that one. I know I have some of these in my memory somewhere, but I'm having difficulty digging them up out of the archives ;-)

EDIT - oh, yeah. We were on vacation in San Francisco many years ago (in the days of film) and I had a completely manual film camera. Someone had recommended it because it would force me to learn how to set the camera and not rely on the controls. This camera had to be manually rewound before removing the film.

We stopped at the overlook on the north side of the bridge over to the left. The lighting was beautiful. Deep blue skies against the bright orange of the bridge, early in the day before the fog rolled in. I took 3 or 4 shots of the bridge in absolutely perfect conditions. I was hyperventilating at the thought I got some perfect shots of this beautiful bridge. Got back in the car and promptly opened the camera back to replace the film....Oops - didn't rewind first. What an idiot.

@Sydne, the first one, unfortunately. I wouldn't have been kicking myself so much if the second one had been an improvement on the first, but it wasn't.

Well I often paint laying on the floor, and had left a fully loaded palette out. My hands were full when my dog, who was a puppy at the time came into the room. You immediately recognize the potential issue and start trying to get the puppy to stop or find a place to put down your artwork. But the puppy interprets this as exciting greeting and starts wagging its tail across your palette flipping paint everywhere. You shout the commands you've been trying to teach your pup and watch in stunned horror as for the first time in it's life your pup: stops, sits, and lays down perfectly... on your palette (to the commands of wait, no, back). Hoping for a training miracle you start towards the puppy too fast and it rolls over in submission but ready to bolt if you come too close with that canvas...and you realize this isn't going to end well.
-- mary ellen anderson

Did you at least get a picture of your multicolored puppy?

Murray,
I'm sure I have photos but can't find them, but here is one where I obviously haven't learned my lesson about putting paint on the floor. lol
-- mary ellen anderson

Pen and Ink and Soup





A few hours down the drain

http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2006408

A post I had where I'd misspelled what I was talking about. In my own defense, the two most common abbreviations for the Adirondacks are ADKS and 'DAKS, you'll notice they don't include the "C".

I once spilled a bottle of India ink on a shag rug in an apartment I rented.
It fell off my drawing table.

Yeah, it was near the edge. I told myself to be carefull but...

I acted quickly and amazingly was able to get most of it out.

One time I had a cold and got all bundled up took some DayQuil and decided to spend the afternoon drawing........long story short I had the sniffles and was using tissue often....(okay Sheena where is this going)....... If you have used pastels and are familiar with them they can be chalky and powdery....my hands had a wonderful arrangement of color on them which then got on my tissue which then ended up all over my nose..............

After an afternoon of drawing and sniffling I had to go pick up my daughter from school,..leaving the house with a face covered in pastel and didn't even know it.......

Julie, I don't know if you are old enough to remember e tickets at Disneyland....it was an all day ticket that allowed you to go on all the rides as many times as you wanted..it was the most expensive but the MOST FUN!
My honey is a good man..as I increasingly get more absentminded, instead of being upset, he just laughs with me and tells me I'm more fun than an e ticket!!

Okay Joshua, if we're admitting to doing stupid stuff here on the FAA Discussion thread...here's mine!

At the time I was new to the whole discussion thread and had posted a couple discussions. The first having a few heated words in it that Isabella told them to be careful. Well after the 2nd discussion I posted I noticed they both were in the "watched" tab. Not knowing any better I assumed that meant that they were being watched because people might be offended. I emailed Isabella and told her I was sorry and didn't mean any offense. Here is that section of the email..

Me: I think it is quite funny, but I don't know why my discussions seem to end up with a debate between some people. My starting odds are not good in this arena I guess. I've only started 2 discussions but they both seem to have ended up in the 'watched' area! LOL..I think maybe I should stay away from starting any more discussions for awhile. Sorry if once again I caused any problems as it certainly is not my intention.

Isabella: The watched area is where ALL your discussions go that you begin and any that you ask to watch. it is so you don't lose them.

Me: That is hilarious..I can't stop laughing. Here I thought I was in trouble! oops

Marlene, Oh believe me, I'm old enough, hence the gray hair in my photo! I actually have never been to Disneyland though, I know, sad but true..but that is hilarious! At least you know you don't have to go to Disneyland to be entertained or be entertaining :)

LOL Julie BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU ;-)

now THAT'S funny, Julie!
you should have gone over to the list of people watching you and really gotten your paranoia on!

I had inexperienced person help me stretch a large painting yesterday. I have an injured shoulder so I needed them to help me stretch whilst I stapled. They told me they needed to cut the material to pull it right, I knew the material was long just enough and that I wanted to staple my Gallery frame in the back; Also the painting was perfectly positioned.

In stupidity I let them cut it.. Why I'll never know lol. Oh well happy accident, I think it will actually work better on Sintra board. :)

While I was outside, 20 hours in on a sketch, a bird pooped on it. I am still trying to come up with a creative way to come back from that. Pen and ink perhaps, paint....oh well.

That's why I like non-water soluble mediums. It hardly phases oils to dip them in coffee.
-- mary ellen anderson

The very first wedding I shot---it was wayyy back in the days of film---during the second roll of shooting the alter shots; when I finished that roll, I opened the back of the camera before re-winding the film.

Ooops.

I can't remember how I explained why it was that I had to re-shoot that last roll, but I remember using my sense of humor, as well as my penchant for self deprecation to save the day.

I still laugh about that incident.

Chad, you can call it realism art ;) A sampling of nature goes with it!

Mary Ellen, think about it though..coffee scented oil paintings?! You could have a scratch and sniff painting :)

I have accidentally dipped my brush in coffee and, like Sydne, once painted a great hand with six fingers!

Chad....recycled mixed media?

Not really art related, but the other day I was talking on my cell phone
and trying to find it at the same time!

J. Morgan - LOL. I've done that with my glasses. The sad thing is, I'm completely blind without them, so the fact that I could actually see should have been a clue.

Marlene and Julie, realism, mixed media, or even in this case, three dimensional!... they all would work. Thanks for your ideas!

upon giving the paining to my buyer...he touches it .then it cracks..fell apart like dandruff..he took ai anyway ...i knew it was my ground...that ruined the artwork..now i learned from it...i dont want to be in that situation again.

Chad, either way, it's good luck!

I was on a deadline for a triptych....I put the paintings outside to dry.....a freak storm blew in and, well, you know the rest of the story....lol.
The designer came over to pick them up to deliver and saw what they had morphed into...she bought two of the three for her own home and we extended the date for the original project.

J, I'm still trying to change the t.v. channels with mine....can't seem to get it to work...but I have faith in technology..there's already an app for it to be a mouse....

My cat pawed my paintbrush out of my hand, spattering paint over the watercolour. I added some more spatters to make it look less random - and it sold. And then I got a commission, asking for me to include the splatters!




Debra Hall / GreyPepperArt

Debra;

That's awesome! I hope you gave your cat some special catnip after that!

Ronald, that's tragic!! We live & learn, bet it didn't happen again!

Debra, that is so very cool and that it turned into future goodness is even better! It's funny how some of the "accidents" turn into something good. I have a bird painting that had splatter happen in the wrong spots that turned into background greenery..it looks like it's supposed to be there :)

I have learned that when working in watercolors almost every painting you do there is going to be a mistake.
Pay attention quickly - because it is now called a " technique ". & let's just see if we can ever duplicate that again.


What a helpful little kitty Debra.

Yes Janine, but kitty not so helpful in my one attempt to paint in the garden with my paints balanced on my knees and he decides to leap up for a cuddle, was still finding paints in the grass half-hour later...

Well, I did a coffee painting once just to see how the color would work!!
Once I got a cut from an exacto knife which I was using to cut a mat board only a few drops fell on the painting first..........actually happened in the right place. So my blood is there...forever! Only no one knows but me! One time a cat jumped up on the drawing table and put a huge scratch in a print....it was not my print, but still I was not happy. I was able to mend it and doubt anyone except an expert would know.

Last night I was using liquid frisket and when I picked up the opened jar to dip my brush it hit the edge of my table and splattered on the edge of my table...out onto my fleece pull over...down onto my sweatpants. I then proceeded to stand up to grab paper towels to get it all before it dried and it dripped onto the carpet!! At this point I started laughing and crying at the same time.

FYI..liquid frisket does not come off of fleece nor the carpet, it does roll off of nylon sweats when dried ;)

A few month ago I finished a acrylic canvas painting which took me 2 weeks , then one evening while watching TV, I checked on my African Grey because he usually is not that quiet, and, there he was, sitting on top of my Painting and chewing it to pieces,.
I could cry, but afterwards ( days later ) I could smile about it, he looked kind of funny sitting there so innocent and not thinking what he is doing

Rita Drolet
http://rita-drolet.artistwebsites.com

Leaving the house without a SD card or battery in the camera is a common occurrence...

Oh Rita!!! How awful. Not sure I would be laughing about that one until years later.

Rita, that's a hard one! I would be wanting roasted African Grey for dinner! My mother-in-law has a Grey also, it can be quite ornery at times.

Edward, I have done that also with a dead battery, leaving it plugged in at home charging and forgetting it's not in the camera!