Today we finally had a break from the rain of the last several days. It was a pleasure to see the sun, although I can’t enjoy it as fully as I could if I wasn’t afraid of the bright sunlight triggering another migraine.

The change in the weather inspired me to change up my art and instead of another in the orange ink series I decided to do some digital collages with some of my recent photos and watercolors. I like combining elements of architecture, landscapes or nature and portraiture. I find this combo makes for interesting compositions, although sometimes I use only two of these three. I started with a photograph of the STEM building at Wayne State and composited it with an almost finished fall landscape and my crocus painting from the other day.

I played around with the coloring and I liked it- almost. I felt it was missing something, so decided on adding a portrait element. I was flipping through looking for the self portraits I took at Blossom Heath Park a couple months ago when I flipped past the painting of Aeryn Sun. I muted the colors a bit from the original, and liked how it works in the composition. It feels more narrative when there is a face visible in these types of images.

Do you think the face adds to the composition or do you prefer the simpler dichotomy between architecture and nature?