Hope and Prayer

Ok, so I decided that since my blog name is "E Makes Art", maybe it's time for me to, oh I don't know, maybe post some art. Hmmm.... there's an idea. I started this piece a couple of years ago when I bought this fantastic little brass bird stencil. I immediately wanted to use it when I got home, so I got out a little 5x5 canvas and troweled thru the stencil with plaster.

Then it sat.

I found it a while later and did a wash of color over it.

Then it sat.

I found it months later and added another wash over it. I realized that I didn't really notice the birds, so I added red to make them pop. I also added a lime green wash over the leaves. I liked where it was heading, but I didn't know where to go from there. I couldn't figure out what to put in the blank area where there was no texture.

So it sat.

I decided that it needed a word there, but what? I tried several but wasn't happy, so they got erased (good ol' watercolor pencils!). I kept on going back to it, but I was stuck. Then a few weeks ago my husband mentioned a woman at his work had breast cancer. The word hope was brought up. That's it! That's what this piece was waiting for: HOPE. I wrote it out, but something was still missing. I stared at it a while, then the word "pray" pretty much wrote itself.

What goes better with hope than prayer?