A NEW APPROACH

The other morning I was laying in bed, awake, and the sun was just coming up and as I lay there I heard the first bird song of the day and my immediate thought was "There's the opening hymn".

It stuck...

So as soon as I could get awake and get my bearings, I grabbed my sketch book and made this little sketch.

My main objective was to get what was in my mind on paper and select my colors. 

Now that is something new for me. 

For years I have chosen colors as I went but I'm turning over a new leaf and thinking about my colors ahead of time and using the color wheel to make those decisions. In this case I wanted the broad scope of the painting to be yellow and derivaties of yellow and across the wheel to the complimentary color as the focal point. In this case, the morning bird with the opening hymn :) Even though I didn't actually paint the bird, the idea was to locate the area. 

Also not to forget black and white always.

"THE OPENING HYMN"

And this is the final result. I had a lot of fun with this because I started out abstract and built on that.

The other thing that was a challenge for me is that I had to really work hard not to fill up every single space on the paper which is my usual M.O. - Now that was hard but I was able to stop myself before it got out of control.

I am using a lot of what I am learning as a new way to teach collage in my studio and on the road. 

I'm very excited about it and still learning.

Hope you like it :) 

I enjoyed doing this piece 

and learning as I went.

THAT, after all, is the goal.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzi