It's a Save!

Subtitle: Round Two  🎈🎉

Round two of Margie's birthday celebration was a Zoom call this afternoon with her three children...and me. 

We had a wonderful visit filled with stories and laughter.

My thumb is getting better....so I've been gradually doing little projects around the house and studio.  I can tell my thumbs are still vulnerable so I'm limiting things like cutting and squeezing paint tubes. I've been slowly working on my art exchange cards....but I also played around with one of the leaf and pine needle experiments.  

I'm sharing my end result first...because it felt hopeless in the middle. But in the end I kind of liked it.  

And....I still have a few chunks of the painting to play with for something else.

As I shared a few days ago....

it started with neon puddles around some earthy debris which dried into some interesting textures.

I was inspired by work that Dotty Seiter  has been doing recently where she layers paint, marks, scribbles, and bits of this and that to her work to create something that tells a story. I've dabbled in this several times....but have never felt like I've figured it out.

It seemed like I was just making a mess....and got a little stuck with what to do next. So I cut it up into chunks....then ended up cutting it up into even smaller chunks. 

I fiddled with the pieces for a while thinking I might make a notecard or small collage.......but in the end decided to make a page for my art journal. 

So (too) late last evening I created a little paper quilt of sorts using a striped watercolor and some painted metallic  commercial papers to break up the busy blocks.

I tried to anchor the whole things down with some wonky circle sewing....but I used the wrong thread color.  You could barely see it.  When I went to bed....I was a bit discouraged.

I was right....in the light of day the stitching was barely visible and the whole thing seemed chaotic and busy. 

My goal today was to try and save it.

I liked the wonky pattern the stitch lines created so I filled in some of the spaces between the lines with diluted white paint. The stitching was now the focal point. 

I also painted a very light wash of white over the whole things to unify it a bit and knock down some of the bright chaos.

I think it's a save!

My takeaway here is that a piece needs some light/white space to help it breathe. And if I forget to put it in....I can just add it!  

It seemed to pair well with this leaf print that was already stitched into my art journal. I whitewashed the bright green print and outlined it with a white paint pen to tie it in even more. I added a quote and ended up being quite happy with this art journal spread.

"Something new always changes right in front of your eyes....it just happens." William Eggleton