Tantrums and Tears on the Exhibition Trail.

Serene Gliding or Frantic Paddling

Chris has, on more than one occasion referred to my artistic endeavours as “swanlike”.

“Most people” he says “just see the nice ordered results (serene gliding), I on the other hand see all the angst, the swearing, the paper tearing and the tears, the ranting and general turmoil (frantic paddling) that you seem to need to create in order to produce something.”

How true..How true… and the last few days have been full of all of the above.

 My Trash Can Runneth Over

I have met one or two artists who live in a sort of dreamy la la land but not many. Most of us get up in the morning to face the creative day with some trepidation. My personal war with bits of paper will never be won and if my battles with pencils and brushes have slackened off a bit over the years, computers, printers, scanners and their attendant software have jumped in eagerly to fill the gap.

All I wanted to do is get some leaflets, handouts and cards designed for the show. It has to be done.. and now. The cause of all the bad temper is that I am having to learn Illustrator on the hoof and quickly, and thinking it might resemble Photoshop in some way was my big mistake! (exactly why can’t I crop an image in Illustrator?). My progress is glacial and an ice age will probably come and go before I really understand it. Then, when after 72 hours of mind numbing key stroking and Wacom tapping I have one image, I find that my printer will not print it correctly and that anyway the colours are so wildly different (and yes I do know all about colour calibration and those expensive machines you can buy..) from those on the screen that it almost renders the whole thing pointless. I know this is inevitable and it doesn’t help that I only have a laptop and a cheap printer.

So last week I decided to go the professional route and have a printer print me some cards. They are a very good company who ask you to supply 5 images which they test print for you. But the results were grim… Day-Glo greens and pinks and heavy saturated blacks.. sigh.

So I tried to get something printed at home which I could then send to the printer to indicate the colour I wanted. Then of course everything conspires against me. The printer runs out of ink, it chews up the paper and spits it out it at me, it point blank refuses to print without a white line at the bottom of everything despite having a million “borderless” settings, all of which I tried.. I even tried to catch it unawares by printing a larger image on smaller paper, in reverse upside down and back to front.  Illustrator crashes, Acdsee crashes, Photoshop hangs… they all refuse to play ball with Adobe Bridge and I see my life shortening rapidly before my tired and bleary eyes.

But I am nothing if not dogged and today was my deadline so the three pathetic images I did manage to coax out of the wretched machines have been sent.  I will be blissfully unaware of the colours my files have printed until I arrive in the UK a week before the show.. what a lovely surprise that will be?

Meanwhile that is not the end to the frantic paddling, the swearing and the tears. I still have the framing, the mounting, the words, the prints, the cards.. and myself… to whip into shape.

Hard Won 

and a small bee badge for my sidebar!

  

I know you young, computer savvy, things will be snickering but I was brought up with only a scalpel, cow gum and a typescale….. and we had nowt to eat but bread and scrape and kept coal in’t bath wi’ whippet… luxury.

I am now going to have a go at  being that bit of swanlike I am least good at. I am going to try and coax a salad onto the table with NO SHOUTING.