Undercover Art

March 8, 2010: Undercover Art In my conversations with other artists, we all lament the difficulty of knowing when a work is done. It's hard not to add just one more definitive stroke, or make that one tree a tad lighter. This week I've been working on an acrylic painting that I began last fall, and just hadn't resolved. As you can see in "Summer Breezes", it began as a cool, rather stark rendering of a solitary house against the sky. I had fun being loose with the strokes, and experimenting with some different colors, but the feedback from my circle of critics was not enthusiastic, so...  I went undercover. Going undercover means searching for new direction on a previous work, much like snow melting (as it finally is here in Ohio this week!) to reveal crocus buds in the frozen earth. It was a complex journey to the "final" image of "Spring Welcome", acrylic on canvas. At one point, three tall pine trees loomed on the left side! But for now, I'm sounding the buzzer. It's done! And it speaks of spring's arrival just down that path.