In Progress: leaving well enough alone.

The biggest pitfall, I find with the free-flowing everything is right and nothing is wrong dictums of mixed media, is that it's far too easy to overdo things.

I do it a lot. 

When you draw observationally, you are in a constant state of push and pull with the thing you are referencing. You simply don't have a choice about whether to stop and analyze what you're doing - drawing observationally is a kind of analysis in itself.

When you don't, you have to make yourself stop. Step back. Analyze.

If everything is right simply because it's you, you have no criteria to use to decide whether you should or should not do something.

It's true that an art journal should be a place of experimentation - but for me, it's also a place to learn lessons, to make mistakes and also to learn how mistakes were made so that not making them repeatedly becomes habitual.

So this is a spread at midpoint.  I have a few regrets in it already - that's OK - but it's a good time to take a breath and listen and look.

Cut and paste - when bad things happen to good drawings

So I had this rather good drawing that got completely overdone. This happens. I'm very bad at knowing when to stop sometimes. 

This collage, too, is overdone, but I think that works out more OK than not in this case. Overall I think it's a nice artistic save. I want to push my color palette a little bit into less comfortable territory.  I'm enjoying working with decorative papers, also, and I'm thinking about other approaches to patterns.

So, what do you do when you botch it? I also digitized the figure before I glued her in, so I may work with her again in the future. I'm beginning to truly love my printer!

Mixed Media goodies before and after

Here's someone new.
I missed the deadline for a time related challenge ---  only to find she's relevant for this one:
 For the Try it Tuesday challenge: "Time Flies"

Recognize her from this post about Fantastix sponge sticks?

Haven't done a canvas in a bit. This one is 6x8, and features vintage feedsack fabric, inktense, vintage book papers, decorative paper, alphabetical stamping.

It reads "Tempus Fugit" - Latin for "Time Flies!"

I may coat her with resin when my new round of ICE resin arrives. The old one hardned during my long hiatus.