Three more things

When I took my collage class with Corrine at Sparkle Days Studio we talked about "how do you know when you're done?". Her advice? Ask yourself "what are three more things I could do?" I think I was too excited about my paint flinging to let the lesson sink in that day, but I think the point is that if you can't think of 3 more things (or if none of those 3 things sound good) you're done. I took home two big collages that afternoon and wondered if they were done. (I blogged about the class and took pictures of the collages here)

Now, one of my core beliefs about my own art is that everything looks better cut into pieces. I wasted no time taking one collage and chopping it into post-card sizes

and now that they're smaller I can think of way more than 3 things to do to them. Here are some of the postcards I've made and sent out so far:

The other collage hung on my wall for a few weeks. I'd look at it, ponder, and walk away. It clearly needed more, but what?

(This is the picture Corrinne took of me flinging the first layers of paint in her studio. Click the photo to see her original post)

Finally, a few days ago, I started gluing down random pictures and scraps of paper and then smearing paint on top. Better. What else? Another great idea I learned from Corrine was using a squirt bottle to apply paint instead of flinging off the brush. I remembered I had a small bottle leftover from a tye-dying kit. I filled it with orange paint, took it outside and let it fly. I LOVED it. It gave me more control and less mess than brush-flinging, but it was still very loose. And depending on how I squeezed and where I stood I could get lines, big splots, small drips or (toward the end of the bottle) a light spray of droplets. COOL!

After it dried I drew on it with Neocolors, and stamped on more paint with bubble wrap and homemade stamps. I think it's done. It's back on the wall, and so far it's not screaming "more". I'll give it a few more days.