Working on pieces and working on products are two different thing. So often, working on pieces, whether a coatrack or a painting or a print, working on pieces is a creative process. Working on products means the piece is done and now it has to be photographed or we've got to figure out packaging and shipping costs. While creative, working on products isn't the 'best part', it's often technical and numbers-based and that's not as enjoyable as the unpredictable creative pieces we work to create.
Creating the pieces themselves is the true creative work. And while it is 100% enjoyable, it is challenging and sometimes, it just doesn't work out. You can spend hours, days even, working on a piece and it ends up in the trash. You can lay out the beautiful creamy piece of paper or spend hours carefully sanding a distressed piece of lumber and it has all the promise in the world. You can see the finished piece in your mind's eye. But for whatever reason, it goes sideways and you end up losing the work.
The little frog above was done in pointillism. That means every bit of ink on the paper is a dot. All based on this picture. It took days to get it this far. And then it went sideways. It's sitting in a the 'Work in Progress' folder as I might go back to work on it. But there's something about it I don't like and I think it went sideways. I'm not sure exactly how but I can tell it did. So it will remain a Work in Progress.