A jack-in-the-box girl

Here is a painting I worked on while taking a class with Mindy Murphy Lacefield. I really love working with collage. Yes.......more rabbits! I love working abstractly but then I have to have some realistic form in the work. I finally figured out that my goal is not to make a realistic painting but on the other hand not abstract either. I seem to go back in forth with my process of allowing myself to  paint wildly without any thought of realism, but then I reel myself in with reference around me to create form that makes sense. I have a huge library of images I can refer to when that stage of the painting is called for. It's a wild unexpected ride!