Ribbon Roses (Collage Day 3) Closeup

Ribbon Roses (Collage Day 3) Closeup Originally posted by randubnick

I wasn't satisfied with the way this collage looked yesterday, and after I left the studio, I kept thinking about how to make the colors more muted so the roses would stand out. Mr. Daigle, my college painting teacher, said that having a problem to solve is good for an artist, and in this case I could see he was right. This problem made me think hard, and it also made me hurry back to the studio. This morning, I went to Red Brick to try to change the color of the vase by using some bits of more muted pink and red, using two more of the ribbons with different patterns but related colors to do this, cutting and pasting tiny triangles. I liked the result, and plan to do more of that later, to suggest light and shadow on the vase. I was thinking that I should also try to change the color of the tablecloth too, and was trying to find another green or blue, but got distracted by the leaves in the original ribbon pattern (the one with the roses). Without really thinking too much about it, I cut out a set of leaves and positioned them between one of the roses and the vase, and that seemed to immediately create the sense of a bouquet and solve the color problem. Even the color of the tablecloth seemed to work better! So I pasted those leaves down and just kept going, cutting out more leaves and pasting them down fairly quickly. It felt as though I was working effortlessly, and the art was "making itself"; I think this what they call "flow"; it doesn't happen to me all that often, but it is great when it does! Anyway, I kept working longer than I intended, and stopped when I realized that I had a crick in my neck from being in the same position so long. Before leaving the studio, I tried to take pictures with my phonecam, but couldn't get a good photo because of reflections from the metalic ribbon. Then I remembered that my phonecam's "night mode" setting, and that worked. Here is the photo of the collage as it is today, cropped to eliminate the raw styrofoam backing. This is still a work in progress, but I am much happier with the direction it is going now. To be continued. . . .