Friday, August 29, 2014

The Look at Stage

I've gotten into mixed media  painting on canvases lately. I think it's a natural progression from a lot of art journal painting.
Here's one of my latest - not sure it is quite finished yet, but it is in the "look at" stage. Do you do a "look at" stage with your work? I know some people work slowly, making little changes over time, and some people work quickly so when they are done, they are done.
I don't do a "look at" stage at work in my journal, but I find with my canvases I need to step away, put  the painting out to study and casually glance at it over a period of several days. I see things in the piece usually when I least expect to see them, and sometimes other people see something-for the good and the bad! And sometimes I just decide the painting is finished.
I think a lot of artists have this study phase while working. But what do I know?
Think my piece needs anything more?
I posted this piece this week at Paint Party Friday. Check out all the great art there.
So I am off from work today-its the start of the long Labor Day weekend! Got to love that especially after that first week back to school. It is exhausting- oh listen to me.  What a baby, huh? 

THANKS everybody for your suggestions!

9 comments:

sheila 77 said...

I love the mixture of images here and the birds give a good focal point. I can relate to the look-at idea as my look-ats can take days, I think it's necessary for some paintings.
I like it as it is now, but I'll be interested to see any changes too, if you make them.

Valerie-Jael said...

Wonderful piece, and it is always good to stand back and look. I usually take photos, as I often see details there that I would otherwise have missed. Valerie

GlorV1 said...

I too like it as it is one. Your mixed media piece is awesome.

Linda Kunsman said...

I think this is really lovely-personally I would add a word, or a quote, but that's just my style. Happy holiday weekend!

Faye said...

A colorful, fun piece. On watercolor or oil paintings I do have a look at stage or rather several. Doing greetings cards or backgrounds or journal pages, no.

JKW said...

I like the mixed media and especially each bird. I find that taking a picture of my work and looking at it through the computer, I can see all the different things I need to do to it that I either had forgotten or that I need to redo. Blessings, Janet PPF

denthe said...

Wonderful mixed media piece! When you're not sure it's ready, it isn't. At least for me it works that way. I just leave it there where I can see it all the time, and usually some ideas come to me. It can be just a small detail, but you'll know when it's ready :-)

DVArtist said...

I really like how you created this. The layers are full and the depth is excellent.
Well done
Nicole/Beadwright

Cindy D. said...

Well, I don't do much mixed media, mainly just markers and ink, and I can tell you that the middle stages almost always look terrible! I used to give up more easily, but now if I keep going, it usually works out in the end.

You picked such a nice color family for the bird stencil, to stand out from the background. I wonder if you might want to lightly do some pale, mostly transparent clouds over some of that, to blend them in just a bit with the background? Just a thought!