Friday, June 23, 2017

Horticultural Happy Place

Sometimes ya gotta roll up your sleeves, risk a few prickers, do some gentle dead-heading, tease out a weed or two, and get soil under your fingernails.

Who'da thought I could rescue these blooms?

Risk a Few Prickers and a Bee Sting
4.5 x 6"; acrylic, ink, collage, and pastels on paper
abstract floral
2017
sold


The photo below shows where I started today.

So much hands-on learning here. I had to cover up the bits I wanted to "undo" in such a way that they wouldn't bleed through. I had to interact with all four major color fields in the painting, remixing those colors from scratch based on vague memories of what I'd created six days and one country away from today's starting point.

And I did it!



4 comments:

carol edan said...

Really LOVE the changes!!!Colors are stronger, negative spaces revealed. Took a lot of courage to tackle the issues you thought needed taking care of. I liked the first whimsical flowers and love the more stoic version as well.

dotty seiter: now playing said...

Carol, thank you for your feedback.

When I made my self-perceived Big Mistake a few days ago with this painting, I knew I could paint over it and start over or cut it up to use parts in some new way but I did not think I could turn the clock back to where it was before I added the 'stems' and 'leaves.'

I let go of ALL my ideas and set the painting aside to work on something new. Letting go brought spaciousness. In that spaciousness, I got out of my own way. When I got out of my own way, I returned to my painting with beginner's mind.

SUCH an amazing experience.

Sheila said...

Love these Dotty! Love your wonky silly string stems! Well done on the color matching, love, love, love your textures :)

dotty seiter: now playing said...

Thanks, Sheila. The color matching was the big-growth challenge here. The textures were fun to play with; the challenge there is to make them work together and stay mindful of not going overboard.

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