New Work: Road Work; Thoughts on editing

Road Work
image size 11" x 14" collage on board

"That didn't exactly fly onto the paper!"

Libby Fife (feel free to use this one as much as you like!)

Editing: 
The above piece was finished (several times!) on Tuesday. There is this sense of balance that I am after and I seem to know it when I see it. It took a while to get there however and one of the things I struggled with was editing. Editing is a problem for many and I am no exception. While working, I did remember this little gem from Stephen King's book, On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft. When he first started submitting his stories for consideration, he was given some advice by an editor who rejected his story. When editing your work, take the finished draft and subtract about 10% of the total amount of words written. I took this to mean that it isn't just a matter of removing words but of writing with precision and cleanliness. Have you been concise in your choices? I don't think that making art is any different. Have you used all of your tools (composition devices) properly and in a judicious manner? Can less be more? And to that end do you remember what it is that you were trying to say? Is it clear? Good advice I think for all of us.

Some Progress!
This is the sixth piece I have made now in which I did not start with any kind of sketch/planned drawing. This is progress for me! These six pieces all started with some sort of a large shape that I already had or that I took from my sketchbook. For this particular piece I knew that I wanted to lay down a sort of geometric framework on which to build more organic shapes and smaller detailed areas. I had the idea that I wanted some loose sections but that I didn't want those sections to seem like sections, if that makes sense. I ended up removing some pieces that I had added, discovering that too many little details can break up the larger whole in a negative way. 

Inspiration: 
This piece was inspired by something really random. I was sitting in my car on the highway the other day. There was road construction and I was lined up with everyone else to go through the traffic stop. I looked over at the Cal Trans truck and noticed the sides. They had these kind of square recessed insets. I thought to myself that the design was sort of fancy for a truck. The whole thing started a train of thought about road construction and before I knew it I was making a piece inspired by that truck.

Hope everyone's week is off to a good start. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Libby