Day 18 of 30-- a different approach. . .

Today's painting is done on an 8" x 10" scrap of mat board, collaged with little pieces of different papers in a very random fashion. Here is the background, made yesterday during my childrens' class while the girls were collaging their 2 backgrounds. I demo-ed on mine and finished it after the class.

And this is the finished "painting" which has no painting at all in it, just collage and pen. It is 8" x 10", so not large. I started with the 3 trees and made them part of the "dark pathway" through the painting. The trees represent the giant Sequoias from which the "Nation's Christmas Tree City" gets its title.

I added more black to connect the trees to the sides of the painting and to direct the viewer's eyes through the painting. The "You are here" is a little joke, I guess, and there are a lot of hidden elements throughout the painting, taken from a recent copy of the Sanger Herald, our weekly newspaper.



Here are some of the little "secrets" in the painting:

Pastor Sam (upside down) and "Art Hop" 

Sanger Unified School District's contact information

The Sanger Herald's contact information

"Sanger" title, split apart

                 

Sliver of SHS Basketball team schedules

Detail of the 3 trees

And, once again, the completed painting, bigger this time! When I started out with the wild collage background/under"painting", I thought this would be one of the weakest paintings in the series of 30 or more, but it surprised me! I think it's one of the better ones. :) And I had fun doing it. I actually like it a lot when I do NOT know what's next--I like the mystery of letting each piece I glue down guide me to the next piece to glue down. No drawing, no planning, really, just a "jump in and see what happens" sort of approach. Of course, I can move things around until I glue them down and that's exactly what I do--I "audition" each piece in a variety of places until I find the one that my intuition tells me is the right place. And then I glue it down and select and audition the next one. :)