June 19, 2011 - A Kind of Freedom

... because you know things can't get any worse.
The Freshman, TriStar Pictures (1990)

Last month, I was lucky enough to be a guest at a Santa Rita Art League meeting.  The featured demonstration was "New Paintings from Old," by artist Jean Makela.

Parenthetically, I love hanging with my mother's Arizona artist posse. Many of them are retired from lifelong art careers and now feel completely free to paint how they want, when they want, and as they want. Accordingly - and this is a best-kept collectors' secret - you will find some really, really good work quietly tumbleweeding around in Green Valley, Arizona.

Ms. Makela shared a number of techniques for re-working unsuccessful pieces.  Accordingly, I recently was emboldened to atack an old watercolor. Here is the "before":

It's painted on yupo and was stored in a plastic bag for too long. When I extracted it for more work, the yupo refused to accept any additional paint.

After some head-scratching, I remembered Ms. Makela's advice and laid out some collage papers:

Then (feeling a wee bit like my toddler at Craft Time), I got busy with scissors and matte medium. The cuts were exacting.  Over two days, I spent about three hours laying in the papers:

Now they are Happy Fish. And, more importantly, they are Finished Fish.  The "Fast Four" will be available for sale this fall.  Many thanks to Jean Makela for this successful marine salvage idea!