Three artist friends and myself are doing a collaborative painting project.  Four equal sized canvases, painted by each artist. 

Few rules :  No pastel colors (not difficult as each of the artist enjoy bold colors)

Start with small circles in the inside corners. 

Must use some red and some teal. 

Then paint what ever one wanted to.

We started, as a group, in my studio,  and after a few hours packed up and took our projects home for completion to meet again in two weeks.

When finished each artist exchanges three of the canvases with the other artists.  

Four parts to be hung together or separately. 

Sounds fun.  Sounds easy??

Well, I didn't quite know what I was going to do, so I started with basing in all four canvases with the teal color.  Then based in some birds, leaves etc.  I wasn't happy, but one thing I know 

"never judge a project in the middle" . 

I worked on the first canvas and added and painted, but just couldn't get "into" the project.

PLUS I'd seen how the other artists had started theirs and I was getting very frustrated about mine.

I "slept" on my project and knew I had to take a different approach.  I'm not that fond of teal and I think having so much of that color was blocking any creativity I could come up with. 

So

So I decided to start over. 

I had a ways to go on the birds, BUT good-by. I gessoed over everything and started with plain white canvases again.  

A sneek peek at the beginnings of my new paintings.

And a peek at my messy painting process.

 In two weeks , I'll show all the finished paintings before the "trade-offs" and after.

It is great to get together with other talented people and share plus it makes me "stretch" as an artist.