See-Sick

Yesterday, after several failed attempts over the weekend, I thought I was finally going to finish my white rabbit painting. I feel like I have put more time into this painting than any other, ever. That's probably not true, but it feels that way! Worse, I am just crawling up the walls with excitement to get going on my Halloween paintings! This painting is now holding me back! Not fair!

One of the problems over the weekend was that my eyes were especially tired and I really was having problems with the close-up detail. I thought to myself "Well, the glasses place called and told me my glasses were ready! So, Monday will be the day! All our problems will be solved!"

So yesterday I was very excited to get my new painting-glasses. My eye sight is generally fine, but that up-close stuff had faded to a bit of a blur. I couldn't wait to see if it helped!

Ta'da! Me in my new glasses! Of course, they only work with things in the range of 6-12 inches from my face which means I could barely see the camera here...

I tested my new glasses out by looking at some of my paintings up close, and sure enough I could actually see the details I had been lacking! Of course, this led to about 15 minutes of me screeching "OMG! Why did I do that? Didn't I see this needed to be worked a bit more? And what about here....!" After I got over myself, I couldn't wait to get to work. I just knew this would be the answer to my painting woes. My secret hope was that it would actually speed things up for me because I'd spend less time waiting for my eyes to focus on things. My glasses were going to be like magic!

Now, one of the things I have done in my studio is to make my work space a standing one. I was finding that long bouts of sitting and working was leading to my not feeling so well. This was working out great, but it turns out that is not the best set up for glasses like these.

I made myself so sick, I had to stop and go lay down. You see, I could see everything I needed to while working up close, but then I had to shift to my paint, and I was not using a hand palette. Instead, I had the paint set on my rolling paint shelving which put my gaze well past the correction. Oh, hello motion-sickness nightmare!

So, unfortunately I not only didn't finish my white rabbit painting, I didn't do much else for the rest of the evening either. I have to figure this out (so if anyone has any suggestions.) A friend who works at an eye doctor's said that if I keep having problems, that I should go back and explain that - that maybe they have reverse progressive glasses or something like that (mine are not progressive at all.)

Ugh. So, I'm off to finish this painting without the aid of my new super-hero glasses. *sigh* Fortunately, my Halloween painting I have all ready to go will be worked at a studio desk, so the paint should be level with everything else. If that makes me sick too, I guess it's back to the doctor!