Day 249 - 365/2014

Day Two Hundred Forty-Nine

I was hoping to work on more/other things today and tonight, but it is just not happening...stupid heavy air, headaches, swollen sinuses, etc.  Sheesh.

I keep hoping for something to come to me for this "painting"-turned-collage.  I love Biteyou and I have had a few ideas...it is the execution of the ideas that I am struggling with.  I even like the little bit of light at the very top of the collage in the photo...maybe (yeah, right) I can "paint" something in like that.  We'll see.  But not tonight.

I was also looking at this collage today -- but I have seriously fallen out of love with it -- the whole shebang...I need to paint over (or paper over) the image and start again.

I decided that before I go to the mess/trouble of adding more paper(s) to this, I'd turn it upside down and try to salvage it as a "painting" ... now for some paint drying time...

And I do think that Pup needs whiter sleeves on his shirt...back to the blending chalks...

"Before"

"After" -- yes...definitely better with the whiter sleeves.

And now that the paint is dry on the other canvas...I thought I could perhaps turn the guy into a cat, but no...it doesn't want to be a cat.

Nope...definitely not a forced cat face.

It might take a few days, but it will let me know what it is...I have a slight feeling there may be a lot of small bits of color involved.

Day 248 - 365/2014

Day Two Hundred Forty-Eight

As expected I was in pretty bad shape this morning...usual treatment plan made things more tolerable.  I made a dash out into the horrendous heat and humidity to do three errands...go to the framing shop, get Bootsy's cat food, and grab a few essential groceries...then make a beeline for home and air conditioning...and back to the treatment plan.

I got a set of three 16x20 frames for three collages I purchased a while back, an 8x10 one for one of my collages (below) and chose 2 frames for custom sizes.  I am not feeling like I could do a very good job with the assembly of the frames/hardware/etc. so I will leave that for another time (soon).

One of the custom frames will be for my collage called Pup.  I have wanted to add a bit more color to his background and chose a blue frame, so tonight I added blue to Pup.  I started out by mixing some acrylics until I got a color I liked...but man...what a mess.  Luckily I was able to wash off most of it.  Then I switched over to the "artistic blending chalks" and used cotton swabs and my fingers to apply the chalks.  The colors turned out pretty cool over the various background papers, especially considering how much matte medium and spray fixative is over the whole collage (because I originally thought I was done with it...ha ha ha).  But so far I think it looks much better with the added chalks/blues.  I may want to add a bit more white to Pup's sleeves...not sure yet.

Pup "before"

Mixing some acrylics.

Yikes!

Yay -- it washed off pretty well.

Switching over to the chalks.

Yeah...much better...I still want to see the papers underneath the added color.

I like the differences in various places on the collage...still the two same colors of chalk as above and below...

...just sits differently on different papers.

I like Pup a lot better now.

And here is the 8x10 collage...I can't remember right now exactly what I called it...something along the lines of "like a fairy" because of the lines from a children's book that are buried in the background of the collage...but I may have called it something else...I don't know.  I liked the collage as it was (without a frame) because the collage spills over all of the edges.  But what a difference with the simple black frame -- I like it even more now.  It's like the black frame really makes all of the black in the collage pop...or something.