Background Fix Up

 

Have you ever completed a project and then wished you could change something about it?  For me, this little chickadee is one of those projects.  I never did like the background.  My color teacher would say this piece has "background fatigue".  It's all the same, doesn't have any interest, doesn't allow your eye to move through the piece, it's dull - blah, blah, blah.  So, I decided to try to "fix it".

 

Here is what I did.

 



 

I took a piece of deli paper and created a mask by tracing and cutting around my subject matter.

 

I then took a handmade stamp I created using fun foam and a plastic placemat and determined which section I wanted to use.  The placemat is pretty big so I only needed to use a small section which I painted blue and printed on to the background.  The deli paper kept the chickadee safe from blue paint and allowed the stamp to appear to be continuous behind the bird.



 





I added Christmas postage stamps, glass dots to the holly, and small circles cut out of tissue paper.  Much better! 

Lesson learned - If you don't like it, find a way to fix it.