Ending the Three Day Weekend

How I love having just one extra day added to my weekend.  This was a day for me to many things, some of which were outside of my studio.  I spent the morning make a cheesecake and mixed berry sauce for Mike's birthday which is tomorrow.  We were initially going to celebrate it today but decided to wait until tomorrow and have steaks and salad, plus cheesecake of course.

Yesterday I did put the finishing touches on another one of the drawings from Thursday night's life drawing session.  It is titled "Sara in Pink" and is 14" x 22".  I used soft pastels on charcoal paper.  The drawing was originally 22" x 25" with more negative space on the right side of the figure.  I had decided to collage some papers in this space and started with a thinner paper that was pink.  I was using matte medium as my glue, which made the paper start to wrinkle, so I pulled it off before it was dry.  Then I decided that I was going to let it dry, then iron it in place.  When I did this, the light weight paper turned orange!  Yuck.  By now it was permanently attached, the only solution was to cut it off, which is what I did.  Now my artwork is not a standard size, but having the figure just slightly off center certainly makes for a pleasing composition.

Most of the afternoon today I worked on a small, 8" x 8" collage for my dad for his 80th birthday; the celebration is next weekend.  I used old photographs, papers, stamps, an old key, and a plastic golf ball marker.  I am pleased with the finished results.  I also enjoyed going through the suitcase of old photos again.  There is a photo of the twins as babies.  I have two photos of dad with a bicycle, the larger one was taken in 1945.  Then there is the cut out of dad when he was in his 20's (I am guessing).  The picture at the bottom is another one of dad as a young man, I am not sure when it was taken.  The black and white photo in the upper left corner was taken from some pictures of a girl scout outing, I think it was in the early 1970's.  The picture of mom and dad was one I took this past Christmas of 2010.  In the background are papers from Creighton Elementary School, North High School, and the University of Arizona.  I am trying to decide if the white paper in the center is too bright....I might come in over the surface with a stamped image to lessen the brightness of the white.
I have a busy week ahead, so I am not sure what will happen to my mini collage a day project.  Wait and see I suppose.