Painting With Collage Has Me Wondering If It's Ever Complete

It's Paint Party Friday today and I am heading over there with my "completed" collage. I am still in a quandry as to whether it is actually complete, but hey....here it is... 

 In my blog post In The Studio Today Playing With Collage, I explained that I use these 5 X 5 inches squares as places to experiment with techniques and color layering.  I also don't like to waste paint, so I often take my leftovers and smear them around on these cubes.  Last time at Paint Party Friday, I posted an image of a 5 X 5 inch painting that I decided to collage over.  It started like this...

I trimmed a page out of an old dictionary.  The page is specifically about waves and wavelengths.  I thought it worked with the theme of the painting.  I had the idea of including some sort of image that I altered.  Looking through my images, I fell onto a pic of one of my finches and decided to try and use it.  I altered in the image using Picnik.  I tried a few things, like directly cutting out the bird.  Then I decided to use the part of the image that captured the cage.  I cut a silhouette of a bird out of that portion of the image.  I like the graphic quality of it.

I then added a totally cool vintage package of buttons still partially intact and a cut piece of burlap.

I really didn't know where this collage was going to go.  I just let it kinda develop by digging threw my piles of scraps, jars of stuff and such.  I even cut out a spot from a leopard printed tapestry fabric that I had previously used on my sister's Teacher Chair a few months back.  I worked it around atop the little burlap square and a figurative 'nest' for the finch emerged.

As you can see from the image above, I added a line of pale pink beads strung on a silver wire and a little metal flower to the burlap square too.  My finch are always collecting things and bringing them back to their nests.  I thought it only appropriate that this little guy did the same thing. 

Then I got this hair brained idea.  I have always disliked the sides of my little cubes because they are usually glob up with paint.  I decided to try something new to finish off the sides.

Using the black and white gingham fabric leftover from my Kitchen Cabinet Becomes An Open Shelf project, I finished off the sides, wrapping the fabric around the back and secured it with Modge Podge.

So here is how it stand now.  Do you think it is complete?? At first, I had wanted to add more of a top painting on this collage, but as it came along, I was too squeamish to put paint on the objects. I think I was too attached to them.  For example, the vintage button card is so cool, I didn't want to change it.  I decided to give it a little breathing room and come back to it.  Sometimes, I become less attached to my work when I allow my emotions to simmer.  But even today, I still haven't decided if it is done. 

So what do you think?? Is it done?  Do you think I should paint something over this?  Any ideas?  Let me know.  I think it is funny that one of these little squares that I use for experimentation of such has become something that I actually care about!!

Hope everyone enjoys their weekend.  I am heading out in just a few to go join the crazy shopping extravaganza known as Black Friday.  Fingers crossed that the deals are still there...

-The End-