Garden Party ~ Another "recycled" painting

Well, this is one of the most "girlie" paintings I have ever done, but I really like how this one turned out. Again, I used scraps of old watercolour paintings and bits of magazines and some hand painted papers. This time I also collaged over a failed acrylic abstract on a small 8" X 10" canvas.

I've been writing down ideas for more of these collage paintings, and I'm quite excited about them! I haven't been this excited about painting since I first started, so I think I may be on to something. I'm sure I'll go back and forth between my first love of watercolours and collage, but right now I'm so glad to have gotten that spark back! I'm also tempted to do some really bad watercolours just to have them to rip up! LOL

After the holidays I'll be doing more and also hand painting some papers in some of the colours that I need. I will be looking for magazines, calendars, old maps, sheet music, crossword puzzles, almost any kind of paper for my projects.

Recycling can be fun!!

Lately I've been captivated by some wonderful collage paintings by Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson and my buddy Lauren Everett Finn. It got me to thinking about all of the, shall we say, "less than successful" paintings I had taking up space in my studio. If you look closely at the painting you'll see that some small scraps from old magazines have found their way in there too!

Last weekend I sat on the floor and had a great time ripping them up and pasting! It was quite therapeutic. This is the outcome:

Here Comes the Sun!

I know I'll be doing more of these! Yesterday I kind of organized my scraps into different colour categories. I've got a drawer for yellows and oranges, one for greens and blues and one for red and purples. I also have some earth tones and whites segregated. I need more drawers!

I've also decided that I haven't got a lot of red scraps so I've started creating some new hand painted paper, which is great fun in itself, allowing me to experiment with colour and texture without the worry of "ruining" a painting!