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.
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!
I like it pre-cropped too! So what if the pan is a bit wonky…that shows it was used and loved. Fun piece, but it is making me hungry.