Daily Archives: April 1, 2015

It’s Biscuit O’ Clock Somewhere in the World

 

sketch of biscuits

“Biscuit O’Clock”, mixed media, all rights reserved, by Kerry McFall

This is one of my worst “FAILS” ever, and yet I love it!  I just entered it into the Biscuit Fest art competition in Knoxville, TN.  I spent fall quarter 2014 out there in KnoxVegas… between all the biscuits and the bacon I consumed, I gained several pounds and destroyed my gall bladder.  But I couldn’t resist the Call to Artists for making biscuit art – if you can’t eat it, paint it!   So I dug out my Mom’s old biscuit/donut cutter, and the cast iron skillet I swiped from Dad’s camping gear years ago, and got busy.  The subject matter and the vintage equipment cried out for a quilt border, but I just couldn’t get excited about sewing.  Thus you see below the digital mockup, with a “quilted” edge of faux-vintage patterns, which I modified from vintage swatches and/or made up from imagination.

"Before...", copyright 2015 by Kerry McFall

“Before…”, copyright 2015 by Kerry McFall

Wonky, right?  The skillet appeared to have had one too many close encounters with a campfire, warped like 1950’s Tupperware in the bottom rack of a 1970’s  dishwasher.  (The biscuit cutter really IS that warped!) The lettering was icky.  I persisted.  It didn’t get better, and the hand-lettering got worse.  I decided not to submit it, but photographed it anyway, and lo and behold, as I was trying to size it for the web in Photoshop, suddenly only part of the image appeared on my screen.  Voila!  The perfect solution – crop the heck out of it!  Even though it meant losing the quilt border, it really improved the composition, and it salvaged a good week’s worth of fuss and bother.

The moral of the story: “Persistence (with a little help from Serendipity) pays off!”  …even if it doesn’t get accepted, it was way fun!