Summer Garden #5
12×12 inches
Acrylic and collage on gallery wrap canvas
©2020 Lucinda Howe

My studio is cluttered with stacks of prints on the floor and on my inspiration board.

Prints hanging around the studio

I have a stack of old paintings that I want to recycle. Through my work, I continute to learn new techniques and refine my visual vocabulary. Sometimes the new ideas make me see older things in a different way. I keep rummaging through the prints and canvases. I rearrange them and watch for things that may come together in unexpected ways.

Canvases to be finished or recycled

This piece, Summer Garden #5, started out that way. The print had a light pink background and coneflowers. I liked the colors and flowers, but it didn’t feel grounded. The flowers were floating.

The canvas has several layers of paint. In its most recent form, it was part of a series based on a white horizon line. It comprised stenciling, pouring, and dripping. I felt that the stenciled fleur-de-lis pattern reminded me of an iron fence in a garden, but it was too literal. The white line was too stark and needed to be softened. The top and bottom didn’t seem to relate very well.

Unsatisfactory abstract acrylic on canvas

When I saw the print and painting together, I liked the idea of iron fence and flower garden. I’d use the bottom of the painting to ground the cone flower print. I cut the paper so it covered the white line and brought some of the pink color down into the bottom section.

Collage in progress

After looking at that combination taped together for two weeks, I decided it needed some vertical structure. I also wanted to take advantage of the yummy paint texture in the underpainting, and to bring in some blue to balance the blue in the lower left corner. So I cut some holes in the paper in a grid pattern to expose selected parts of the underpainting. Then there was more structure and better integration of the colors between top and bottom.

Cutting up the collage

I think Summer Garden #5 (photo at top of post) is close to being finished, but I’m going to let it dry thoroughly and give it one more look before varnishing.