The Restart of the Commission

So I began again by initially stamping words that reminded me of her and of the great time we always have when we meet her - usually for knitting at her beach front cafe. This I knew would be covered up by images but they are important to me to put them as the first layer, the underpinning of the painting and of a life well lived.

Then I added pictures I'd collected in a collage format. So you see the roses, the coffee and treats, the balls of yarn, the hands in the mandela remind me what she does for the young people and old people in our community here at the beach. People that need a friendly word of encouragement, recognition, personal attention, in a word-help.

I wanted a picture of her cute little dachshound to put front and center so I got her husband to hold Copper and I got a great digital picture which I adjusted in Photoshop, printed out on Japanese rice paper and then added to the picture though as you see here I removed it because it was smearing and I had to find a better way to fix the ink before incorporating. Thus began some research about how to do what I wanted to do.

I tell everyone that art is creative vision but it's also at least 1/2 problem solving.