Lady of the Lake

Lady of the Lake
Originally uploaded by misphit

Couldn't sleep last night. I hate it when that happens. Some nights I can just kind of float back to sleep and all is wonderful. Other nights, like last night, my mind is on some kind of warp speed and I end up awake laying there thinking of 2000 things I could be doing. So last night, instead of getting annoyed in bed, I got up. It was 3 am. Made myself some hot chocolate to warm me on such a cold evening...and settled down at my studio table to complete this piece.
It's been sitting there since Thanksgiving, just a primed canvas with 2 photos glued to it. I couldn't come to terms with the front composition and so it got buried over the holidays.
I picked it up yesterday when I got home from work and dug into it with vigor. Finally I settled down on what it would become, and believe me, that was difficult...Before I glued it down for final, I wanted to sleep on it first
Yea, right. Like I said, I woke up chewing on it. So anyhow...back to the story.
I ended up not liking it at 3am. Damn, I hate it when that happens. The head was bothersome...I didn't have the birds right, in fact the original bird I pulled out and replaced with 2 others and added 2 more. I got crazy at 3 am and basically rebuilt the piece. AND glued it down with no hesitation.
I guess I knew earlier before I went to bed it wasn't stable. My dreams had other ideas. And in the wee hours, after I sent Jack Frost out the door with a couple of logs in the woodstove...I solved all image problems with ease.
Another small thing to note. I also had difficulties with the sides. The left had side had all those twigs, and the right hand side had none. I wanted some balance. Originally I had some paper pieces set up to compose a fake bunch of twigs. But at 3am, I threw them on the floor, picked up the pen and ink, and drew in some trees.
And so, the Lady of the Lake rose up from the dawn.

Oh. Did ya notice? The left hand photo is upside down. Intentionally.
So what's up with the middle of the night creativity burst? I don't know. But I liked it. Till 4:30. By then, after the heat of the moment when I had finished up this work, my feet turned ICE cold. I wanted to be warm..and I snuggled back into my bed till it was time to go to work.
Content.