More Snow!!

Snow Queen

Wow!

I cannot believe we are getting another foot of snow! This is clearly the longest winter that will never end! My kids are expecting yet another snow day tomorrow. I do believe there is a conspiracy out there to make sure that kids are NEVER in school an entire week. My 3 youngest kids attend 2 different schools, and at least one of them has a day off or a half day every single week. Or there is a snow day. Or one of them is sick. I love my kids-don't get me wrong-but it is very hard to create art with constant neediness surrounding you.

I am bittersweet about this subject. I am getting to the point where I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. In less than 5 years I will only have 1 teen left at home. And you realize I have been at this parenting thing for over 20 years. I am ready to play artist full time and mommy part time. But I know I will miss them terribly.

OK, enough venting. I will go back to my sunny self. Lets see..ok. Ahem.

"Oh joy! Rapture! a snow day tomorrow! Yippee!"

Do you ever get to the point...

where you just have to take a step back , give it a good look, and then admit your work has problems?

I worked on this one all day today. There are some things I like, but it has some major composition problems. Probably because I didn't really sketch it out well before I started. I was too excited about the cool background I wanted to try. See the little polka-dots back there? That was created by laying circles punched from contact paper lightly on the surface, and then painting a wash over them. I allowed the paint to seep under the contact paper and it created a very subtle design. I learned this technique while reading a collage book by Claudine Hellmuth, last week when I was sick. I couldn't wait to try it out.



Then I went forth with my painting and 3/4 of the way through realized my bird was floating in mid-air. And not flying either-that would make sense-just sort of aimlessly floating there. So I gave him a branch. And that made the rest of the space look too empty so I added a couple more flowers. Then I only had one leaf in the whole thing, just one little bit of green. This bothered me so I added green polka dots on all of the sides. That was ok, but my branch just ended abruptly at the edge of the canvas, while the flower wraps around. Oh what to do! I could continue to paint the branch around the side, but then the tongues at the top and bottom seem to end abruptly. AAhhh!! So now I am toying with just painting all of the sides black. But should I try to remove the polka dots and the flower wrap around first?
And just now, while looking at photos of my piece, (which is a good way to get another perspective), I am thinking AGAINST painting the sides all black. I think I could wrap the tongues and branch around the sides. I would only have to remove 2 polka-dots. Or maybe collage right over them? Hmmm...I don't know. What would you do?