Did you ever do a painting or exercise that looked perfect the first time but you just couldn’t believe it? This happened to me yesterday. I was working on my second collage in order to exercise the new insights I gained from reading the book by Edward Betts. I used the left over acrylics from the day before to paint a textured background on Bristol Board. Then I used my torn gray scale papers to layout my first attempt at a composition. HMMM, this looks pretty good. But I can improve it, right? I don’t know this looks pretty good… Well to make a long story short, I could not improve it and I could not recreate it! Of course! After several hours over 2 or 3 working sessions I created a new composition. It is fine and I do like it but boy was I frustrated that I could not recreate my original work.
Collage Exercise 08282010
I like the simplicity and cleanness of this design. I am doing these exercises on Bristol Board because I don’t like working on it and I am trying to use up the stock that I have. Have a lovely late summer day!
Linda Halcomb's Blog 
sometimes you DO get it right the first time! I guess that’s a lesson we all need to learn.
I so like this collage very much. It has a nice balance of shapes and colors.
Thank you Carol! I hope you are feeling better every day. I think I like this the best of all my collage exercises. It is so simple…HMMM and what’s the learning here!!!?
I’m not a fan of collage – at least, mixed media collages with all sorts of things mixed up together. These, though, are just delightful! The colors, shapes, composition. You are making me reconsider collage altogether!
Hi Naomi, I think Collage is fun to work with. My struggle with the pieces is to make them interesting with little or no color. This is really hard for me since I love color! PS I gave my first Asian Ink and Brush Tour at the Indiana[polis Museum of Art. This was really fun! I wondered if you know of a good basic art history of Ink and Brush painting. I have The Three Perfections but the scope is too narrow to cover everything I need. Thanks for any help you can give me. Linda