I worked all day Friday on an Asian-themed collage that just did not work - I had the mat cut and was ready to just go ahead and frame it, but it felt so NOT-RIGHT. Scrapped it, worried about why I couldn't get it to work, and started over with a result that I really like and gave me a zillion new ideas. One of those is scanning and printing fragments of previous work onto rice paper - it's amazing how different those images look from the original collages.
Here's the new piece, titled "Not for the Cat." It has lots of little areas that I want to incorporate in the next piece.
Here's the piece that didn't work (below) - let me count the ways why - too cluttered, no story, no unity, just matchy-matchy images stuck on without enough thought to relationships and values. It's valuable because it's a lesson. Sometimes it's so frustrating to keep adding things , thinking it might get fixed, but that's a mistake.
Look at the difference that a fresh start and clear artistic purpose makes!
I do so love telling stories with images, paint and paper.
