How I finish a piece of art.

My brain and my right hand follow their pre determined path. From what was an empty page to now a point in the art process where my brain and my hand disagree. And can't figure out how to move forward.

This is when I: take a break.

This is when I put the brushes down, and I take a photo of the art as it is right there.

I will wander off, I'll tend to the garden or my kids or the pets. I'll reply to emails, surf the news, have a snack.

Then when I feel up to getting back to work, I open up my phone gallery. I view my most recent piece I am working on. And I will study it/critique it.

Something about looking at your art through a camera lense, changes it's appearance. It allows me to view it in a critical fashion, making choices on parts I don't like visually, and mentally figuring out the way to fix the errors and how to improve it.

And through the improving, the final ideas on how to finish the art, the last moment eureka visions- pour in.

This is when I use the markup tool on my phone. And I'll draw “notes” on the photos of the art, so I remember to make these changes to the art when I go back to physically working on it.

I realized that this zombie painting was sorely lacking in bloody hand smear prints.

I knew I wanted to make the painting and image of Barbie, box shaped. But the idea to add the Barbie logo and the visual look of a plastic window and a cardboard box didn’t hit me till much later in the process.

I wanted to stick with purple hair for Megatron but it wasn’t looking right till I added more white to it. Also decided that Megatron’s lingerie should feature the swirls on his chest. I also figured out how to fix their hip/pose, and decided to get rid of the flowing blouse idea I originally had.