Broken Art-What should I do???

[lindsycarranza]

Okay here is the back story first. About 4 years ago (yes it's been THAT long) I was working on this piece that I was planning on putting in my portfolio (to try to get into some studios, that venture has been put on hold).

I worked PAINSTAKINGLY on this piece for 3 months. That was the LONGEST I've ever worked on a piece (I can usually crank one out in a weekend or a week, depending on the time I have available). Well back then I had this table that was apart of a piece of old furniture that I would use to sit on my lap while I sat on my bed to draw.

Well while working on this piece one night I had to pee so I put the table on the floor and proceeding to get off the bed. Well in the process I tripped over the table causing it to flip over. Well that little accident ended up splitting my piece in half!!! I said MANY choice curse words and started to cry just staring at my work. Well then I couldn't decide what to do with it so it's been sitting in my closet for 4 years. I just came across it again while unpacking and decided I should do something with it already. Well I have been thinking about doing a few ATC's or ACEO's and I thought maybe I could cut it up into those. Do you guys think that would be a good idea?

I have thought and been told other ideas such as finishing it and framing as two to four separate pieces. Which still might work but there is more than one crack. In the pictures (which I took right after it happened with my crappy camera I had back then) you can only really see the one main crack. But after it happened and I tried to pick it up it cracked in other places too. I use colored pencils and I can't really fill in the crack with colored pencils.

I will NEVER buy the board I used for this piece ever again either!

Okay well on to the pics.....









So what do you guys think should I make ATC's or ACEO's?
Should I attempt finishing it and framing it separately?
Trash it LOL

Oh and one thing I thought of framing it separately brings another problem--since it's not a clean break I would either have to make it clean and risk losing some of the picture or leave it unclean....

Thanks ahead of time for reading all that
And for any suggestions!

[scrappygirl085]

Did I miss something?  What is it made of that it broke? 

[M Fox]

hmmm, well, you could finish it, then take it and break it up even more, sort of like a puzzle, but not in puzzle-shaped pieces.  Then, take a foam core board (or whatever backing you'd like) and glue the pieces to the board, leaving a few millimeters between the edges.  You could paint the back board black or some other color.  It would give it a crackled look.  I've seen where people have taken posters and torn them up to do this. 

[eirinnkelly]

This is so beautiful! I'm so sorry it broke, it looks like a ton of work. I would still frame it as is in a single frame, the cracks add character

[lindsycarranza]

Did I miss something?  What is it made of that it broke? 

It's done on artist board not paper so when I bent in half when the table folded on top of it in cracked in half instead of bending like paper would have. It was the only thing I could find at the time that was the scale I wanted for the piece.

[Seegmonster]

I say finish it, especially if it's for a portfolio.  Scan it when you're done and fix the crack in photoshop since you don't use the originals in most portfolios anyway.  Looks great - cooler than the picture it's from.

[olive_juice]

That looks amazing.

I think it would look really neat framed in a few frames. Maybe one long one for one half and two short ones for the other half... I like the idea of having it all jagged. It would make for some interesting wall art, and i'd hate for you to lose pieces of it by cutting it square.

Whatever you do, DON'T put it back in the closet! It's gorgeous!

[blenderbabe22384]

you could break it us some more like its on purpose and create some intrest around it with a colorful background to mount it on like your getting a peek into something else.

[lindsycarranza]

Thanks everyone for the ideas! I have considered finishing it keeping the original for myself and then fixing the crack in Photoshop. That's still an idea. Parts of me really do want to finish it because I was really excited about this piece, and other parts of me are very unmotivated with it since it's been 4 years and it's broken.

I don't know for this particular piece if breaking it more would work. I could definitely see that working for another piece but I'm not sure for this particular one.

[odd_artist]

How about...Finish it as suggested, break it in smaller pieces as suggested, put a nice thick gloss finish on the pieces, and do a mosaic piece - no one ever said you can't grout foam board! Just arrange the chunks on a board, glue, and grout - THEN frame it!

[olive_juice]

How about...Finish it as suggested, break it in smaller pieces as suggested, put a nice thick gloss finish on the pieces, and do a mosaic piece - no one ever said you can't grout foam board! Just arrange the chunks on a board, glue, and grout - THEN frame it!

I like that, too! If you polycrylic-ed the heck out of it, you could even use it as a tabletop!

[M Fox]

How about...Finish it as suggested, break it in smaller pieces as suggested, put a nice thick gloss finish on the pieces, and do a mosaic piece - no one ever said you can't grout foam board! Just arrange the chunks on a board, glue, and grout - THEN frame it!

I like that, too! If you polycrylic-ed the heck out of it, you could even use it as a tabletop!

Oooo!  I like that one, and actually you could skip the grout part, just have a recess in your tabletop and pour in the resin!

[CohesiveChaos]

I would finish the piece then rip it in other places and then mount it to uncut mat board and turn it into a piece of altered art (I didn't read anyone else's suggestions so someone else may have already suggested this)  it's absolutely beautiful and should become something amazing.  There is no such thing as an accident or error just an opportunity for exploring your creativity in an avenue that you didn't expect. 

[lindsycarranza]

Wow thanks everyone! I kinda of like that idea...finishing it and then breaking in into smaller pieces and making a mosaic out of it. It could be cool especially with my technique. I've been told that this piece reminds someone of stained glass so a mosaic could all to that. Well I do think that I will finish it...I haven't totally decided what I will do after that

[JillBoBill]

If I'm not mistaken -- this sounds a lot like Multimedia art board (which is a synthetic resin mixed with alpha cellulose.... or something). Anyways, I've seen this stuff stitched - literally - on a sewing machine, chopped, sawed, burnt, glued. Everything. This stuff is a tank and outside of being snap-instead-of-bend-able, it's really quite awesome.

It really is a shame that it snapped like that, but all isn't lost. There's still loads you could do with it, I think. I like the idea of the ACEO's -- you could also use what's left of it to make greeting cards or something.... something so you feel like all isn't lost and it turned out handy after all. 

[lindsycarranza]

So after several more years this is what I ended up doing
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=364007.0

LOL! Well at least now its "done"

[GarSeeYa]

 Hey...

 If you've already done the fix on Photoshop at a fair resolution, print it on to watercolor paper
and finish the piece with pencil crayon or the original media.

 I'd like to see the solution you came to for this work.

 GarSeeYa!

[lindsycarranza]

Thank you. I never scanned it and now it's this...

 So after several more years this is what I ended up doing
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=364007.0

LOL! Well at least now its "done"

[prettysoldier77]

Frame the two pieces. http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=343403.0

[lindsycarranza]

Thank you, but it's already done I cropped it

[loukr]

I love what you did to finish it off, I think the crop looks beautiful on its own I'd love to know how you manage to get such a smooth finish using colouring pencils, do you use water to blend them?

[lindsycarranza]

I love what you did to finish it off, I think the crop looks beautiful on its own I'd love to know how you manage to get such a smooth finish using colouring pencils, do you use water to blend them?

Thank you very much, I used blending stumps, lot's of pressure and layering and I also use a blending pencil and white to blend everything. Hope that makes sense

[abstractnotion]

Wow, that's beautiful, what a shame. I'm voting for incorporating the pieces into a larger, mixed media piece (easy on the media, more like a mosaic). If not then I'd go with the ACEO idea.

Oh, I see you've already finished it.

[goddessgarb]

Maybe it's a sign to explore the fact that you always have more art inside you.  And/or that it is not about the product so much as the process.  If we look too long at what is behind us, we totally miss what is coming.  I once lost an unfinished novel when my computer went down.  Yes, I did the crying and cursing thing, but then I had to think about why it happened.  What is the lesson, the blessing, the message?  You are a different person, with different things to express now than you were when you did that.  Maybe the break happened to help you break with something in your life that you were trying to hold onto like you're trying to hold onto this piece.  Maybe if you discover/realize what that was, you can keep the piece as is, broken, as a symbol of this growth.