Last week I shared here a handy tip on sketching, showed you my work in progress, and said how I’d take it to art class and get tips from the instructor on how to fix/improve it.

I did indeed take it to class, where the instructor agreed that it needed some tweaking. She pointed out a couple of things (e.g. eyes too far apart, head too wide), made a couple of suggestions on how to fix it, and moved on.

I ended up erasing and sketching the horse’s head a couple of times, redrawing the eyes over and over and becoming increasingly convinced that A. I’m not an equine artist and B. this thing is a mess, probably at the point of needing a total do-over.

I got different comments there, and the following day at the art guild. I heard things like “just set it aside for a while” and “consider it a practice piece and move on with something else”. I also heard that it had promise and to keep working on it, but I’ll admit the other comments impacted me way more. I found myself moving away from “this is an irretrievable mess” to “I love my poor disfigured pony. No, I’m not going to leave her like this. I WILL fix this painting.”

So that’s what I did. It needs a bit more tweaking, but I feel way better about it at this point.

I’m glad I took it both days, but not for the reasons I thought I would. It was having other artists sympathetically agree that it might be time to set it aside that made me determined to fix it.

So I did. And she’s now My Little (Assateague) Pony.

Addendum: I took the pony painting to art class and showed it to the instructor. She said the face was better but the proportions of the horse are off. She said I could work on it some more.

My response? No. I’m done, it’s as finished as it’s going to get. Not that it’s perfect. I’m just ready to move on.