I *think* I finished a collage painting today – it has a mind of its own. The sketch I did to start was of a simple landscape with perspective. I wanted to explore pure texture and color and remain fairly non-representational during the process. I used acrylic paint, metal leaf and inks on Arches watercolor paper.

First, it cooperated and wanted to be a landscape – then it totally stopped working. I bravely whacked a third of it off and turned it vertically like a book. That worked for a while, as well. But, again, it just wasn’t coming together. I think I had been working with images for such a intense time that I was having trouble with simple color and design. Finally I turned it horizontally again and it became the landscape it was meant to be from the beginnning, but with a much darker feel. It is so difficult to explain in words the process of creating something like this painting – my brain’s right side is *way* out of practice, but it feels like it’s coming back. Here’s the piece, tentatively called Dark Dawn –