Keep on Keeping on. Not Allowing Rejection to Slow You Down

I created a second pitch for a project posted on Indiewalls yesterday. It was a piece that taught me some very important things, the most important lesson being to own a rejection, learn from it, allow yourself to be disappointed and then turn that disappointment into a challenge and try again. 

The piece I created was for a beachfront hotel where the keywords used by the client were 'beachy, black & white, floral, landscape and organic'. I browsed some of the other artwork that was pitched and liked by the client and decided to go with the 'beachy' theme or my interpretation of it. Here are a couple of inspiration images provided by the client.

​What I took from this inspiration was that the client wasn't afraid of experimenting with composition and color. An abstract piece inspired by the coast would work. I created the painting and enjoyed the process to bits. Here is the piece that I created

The painting is titled 'Memoirs of Pebble Beach' and is inspired by the movement of the Pacific Ocean. 20 minutes after the painting was pitched, it was rejected. There were a lot of things that raced through my head, and at the forefront was 'Why?'. When I calmed down a little (because who takes rejection well?) I went over the brief and the pitched artwork again, and this time, decided to be less selective of what I took from it, which in turn allowed me to see more. The first thing I noticed was that artists who pitched work around the 'beach, waves, and ocean theme' (the ones that the client liked), went with very light and serene colors. The blues were warmer and in a lot of the photographs and paintings, you could see the horizon, the waves coming in and the actually ocean against the sky. End result: a calm image. I compared that concept to what I had pitched and realized that the mood set by my piece was very different. 

Here's what I'm going to do: create a few other pieces with a different approach focusing on what the client has liked so far and cross all my fingers and toes. Wish me luck!!!  PS I totally photoshopped the piece into two different interior aesthetics to make myself feel better. Take a look