Finished canvas?

 

Still working on my canvases for a possible SALA (South Australian Living Artists) exhibition next year. This one had been sitting for a while and I knew it wasn't done. I turned it upside down and piled on some larger areas of colour. The way the marks from underneath showed through made it a lot more exciting to me. It may not be to everyone's taste, but for me it brought the canvas alive. Suddenly it was coming together. The black lines at the top left are made with an interdental toothbrush. I love the way you can't control them very well and they make some really interesting marks with twists and thick and thin line. They're one of my favourite brushes for mark-making at the moment.

I think that simplifying the colour patches - making fewer of them - and blending them a bit more, but still allowing the history of the canvas to show through worked for me. I guess it just reflects the way that I like to simplify my life but am aware that all the things I have lived through still show in one way or another, as they do for all of us. Also, turning the canvas upside-down gave me a new perspective on it, just as we need with life from time to time.