blog challenge day 8: satisfaction

a moment i felt most satisfied in my life...

i always feel really satisfied after completing a project that has taken me a long time or is really complicated.  usually the more time or concentration i put into it the more satisfaction i get.  unless of course it doesn't turn out the way i want, then it's just frustrating lol.  for example, when i was taking art class in college, i'd spend hours on a single painting or sculpture trying to get every little detail right.  and when i was done it felt really good to know that all my hard work had paid off and of course i enjoyed the challenge.

this was one of 2 paintings that i spent a whole semester on.  which really translates into me spending only a couple weeks working on it.  of course near the end i just spent a lot of time staring at it looking for ways to improve it, but still every little detail counts.  and looking at it now, it's like yeah i spent a lot of time working on it.  time i probably could've spent watching tv, hanging out, or whatever else, but instead i made a painting.  and that's a lot more tangible to me than being able to understand pop culture references.  of course looking at it now i really want to go back and fix that shoulder, it's way too small!!

this project, while not quite as time consuming, was really mentally and manually challenging.  each piece is hand cut from foam board and assembled with no adhesives.  i free handed all the pieces so making the size graduations was all an estimate.  it was tricky trying to come up with a design that would not only be self supporting but capable of being assembled without adhesives (okay i may have cheated and glued the eyebrows on lol).  but i loved making it; figuring out the best way to assemble the hands and feet, how to attach the joints, how to make the wings, and how to attach the angular head were all little challenges that piece posed.  (this piece is roughly 4 feet long.)

it's sort of a weird contrast to a lot of the projects that i have been doing recently; my sewing projects are usually completed in a matter of hours.  unless i get really lazy and cut one day and sew the next.  but they rarely require constant work over several days.  and while i do enjoy the simple act of creating, i miss the challenge of these longer projects where i gained the most satisfaction.  and the more detailed and complicated the better.  which is probably why i like helping paint my boyfriends warhammer models...  and the whole thing is somewhat weird because i'm usually a really impatient person...so for me to want to embark on these day or week long projects is really weird because i can't get the instant results i usually crave.

anyway, better go, i have to leave for the airport in less than 30 minutes!!

(find the original challenge here)

when do you feel most satisfied?  do you enjoy long, complicated projects or do you prefer to keep things simple?