Green Light -- Keep on Going

Earlier in the month I wrote a post about avoiding the trap of overworking a composition, a trap that frequently takes hold of me. I advocated stopping early in your work before mucking it up. However, I'm going to eat my words and advocate the opposite today. This painting is one that I mucked up early on in its creation. It began with a layer of red paint that I let dry, adding a layer of white, and then scratching back some of the white to reveal the red paint underneath. It looked horrible. There was no clear design to my scratching and the red poked out as pink. It was an ugly mess. I let it sit for several days, hating to toss it only because I didn't want to waste the acrylic paper on which it was created. Eventually I went back to it and pushed on. There was nothing to lose. I pulled out every green tube of paint, every green pen, every green pencil and paint marker and began working the four corners of the paper. I left a white band to divide the surface. I scribbled and layered, and kept turning those four corners. Then, all of a sudden I began to like the results. Finally, I stopped, splattered on a few finishing touches and decided maybe it was premature to advocate stopping early. Maybe that mucky mess just means it is time to press on and get over it.The painting is available for purchase as a fine art reproduction print in a variety of sizes and formats from my website. Hope you can stop by.

Playtime Art

My studio is a playroom in which I can spend hours messing with colors and designs. It is hard to keep it clean when inspiration is flowing. Paper and paint are lined up on the floor and I only take a break when I run out of space and have to wait for some paint to dry. Recently I have enjoyed creating painted designs on tissue paper and the incorporating them into collage paintings. This composition includes two such tissue paper designs. Can you tell which designs were created on tissue paper first? Reproduction prints of this work is available for purchase on paper, canvas, acrylic, and metal here in my portfolio. It also makes a really cool throw pillow.

Stop Early: Don't Overwork

Stop early and don't overwork your art. I need to keep telling myself that because I tend toward overworking. The process feels so good that I want to keep on adding colors and lines and textures and layers and more layers until I have a mess. Then I paint over everything and begin again. It is a terrible waste of time and materials. Luckily, I stopped early on this one. Some handmade papers, found papers, and a little bit of paint is how this design began. I let it sit for a few days and then declared it finished, no overworking, no paint over. I liked the colors, the lines and the balance. It felt good.  Reproduction fine art prints on paper, canvas, and metal are available for purchase from my portfolio. The image makes a pretty cool pillow, too! See the pillow here.

Cross Town Bus

Paint and paper are still finding their way into my artwork. A little bit of everything went into this painted collage. Magazine pages provide beautiful, bold color. Paint provides the background, circular stamps and ink add to the surface. The round shapes provided movement. When I was finished it felt like I had travelled across town, thus I named the piece, Cross Town Bus. It was just plain old fun to create. The original was created on paper and is not for sale, but reproductions on paper or canvas are available here. If you are interested in some of my other painted collages, you can view them in the Mixed Media Gallery of my portfolio, here.

Making Marks

Making marks with paper and paint was my preoccupation this week. I created several painted collages by layering shapes and colors. This image is one of my favorites. It is entitled "Circus" because of the bright colors and busy movement. I used handmade papers, found papers, paint, and a little ink. The work is intuitive. I only have a vague idea of what the results will be when I start. I add, subtract, multiply, and divide and eventually arrive at something that pleases me. Then I declare it is finished. This creation was developed on paper. The original is not for sale, but high quality reproductions are available here in a variety of sizes and surfaces. I hope you will stop by and visit my portfolio to see some of my other mixed media creations. You can even purchase this design on a throw pillow.