In a Matisse State of Mind

Matisse Milk Can © Beth Stafford 2012

We are having a hot time of it here lately - not much activity out in the yard (or here in the house). Cassie did manage to do a little work on the door, even though she's been a bit under the weather lately. She doesn't like the heat at all - woke up one morning to find her like this - guess the blanket was too much, even with the AC!

 

Anyway, I wanted to do something different with her marks this time, so I outlined them first, filled them in with solid color, and then cut and pasted them into a blank "canvas". Then I decided to do the same thing with the background, using the porch railing outline and the old milk can. It was virtual collage - lots of fun - and then I applied a cutout filter and different color gradients until I got this composition with its echoes of Matisse. Still playing with colors, so it's not an official print yet - might wind up as a large-scale painting (or who knows what?). Lots of possibilities there...

Matisse Landscape a la PiCassieO

This "landscape" is an abstract from a larger print that reminded me so much of Matisse, with the bright colors and simple shapes of his collages. I am having a lot of fun with it - the large work didn't turn out to be one I'd print, but there are some beautiful colors and shapes to zero in on for abstracts. When I added the watercolor filter, the colors were amazing. There were also a bunch of pendant squares hiding here and there - hope to have them in our store before long!

Cassie has been having trouble with her hips lately, which is hindering her work at the window, but she's still keeping the door full of marks. A neighbor kid committed two acts which incite total insanity in my dog - he rang the doorbell, and had TWO dogs with him on the porch! I thought Cassie was going to go straight through the glass. There should be an interesting title to go with the results - need to work on that.