Missing earring

Dear Sarah/Dear Nikki: Day 455 of our daily art adventure

Hi Sarah -

I didn’t like the way the exploding head from yesterday was floating on the page, but of course I had already glued everything down so it wasn’t so easy to just drop in a background (once glued, it’s a bitch to peel stuff back up - leads to not-always-great unintended consequences).

And, I had this single earring lying around… like, for the past 15 or 20 years (no exaggeration). I LIKED the earrings, though I never wear earrings, and it was smallish and I kept thinking, ‘One day, I will find a use for this… or its partner… and then I’ll be mad I tossed it out.’

The thing I like least about this now is the over-sized mouth that overflows the right side of the face… I’m letting this sit for the moment, hoping that I’ll have a flash of inspiration. Whiteout? Clever masking with cutout paper? Add a cigarette? Lipstick? Leave it as is? I could scan it and then see what I could do digitally…

Not sure.

We had a glorious day here today - warm, sunny. But, more snow in forecast, so not sure what the days ahead will bring.

Nikki

Hi Nikki,

I find both the eye and the lips unnerving, but the lips a bit more so. Clever masking with cutout paper seems like a good plan, but the cutout paper could include smoke or flame or ??? I have earring from years ago, too. God knows why I keep them. Perhaps the time has come to let them go. Along with some necklaces I’ll never wear again.

You know how I like to paint or draw the same thing multiple times, so it should come as no surprise that I wanted to revisit the tulip that I attacked with a spray bottle yesterday (the painting, not the actual tulip). This time I used my Derwent Inktense watercolour pencils to try and get some sense of the shape and shadow of the petals. It is safe from my spray bottle, I think.

XO S