I don't Know

I have always been taught and believed that when you are creating any artistic endeavor that you only add enough additional elements to support your main focus. Or, conversly, you eliminate the unnecessary. Learning to do that is not easy. There is always something more that can be added but should it?

How far do you go?

I have seen artists and artisans alike pile so much stuff into their creation that its focus is completely lost. I have seen scrapbook pages embellished to the point that you can't find the memory that is being preserved. Cards created from papers with big, bold designs then more big, bold elements slapped on top creating a sense of clutter and the excessive frills hugely popular among the Victorian era upperclass and, still to some extent, today. Paintings with so many components that you can't find a point of interest. Photographs stacked on top of photographs, on top of textures, on top of colors until they become surreal.

Again, how far do you go?

Surprise! There are buffalo in the Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. A lot of buffalo. They are hugh, magnificent creatures. It seems that what they like to do most is eat, drink and lay down. Not exciting photography but who can resist?

I took this photograph early one morning.

I created this from the original.

So, how far do you go? Art is highly individualistic. You go, a little or a lot, until it pleases YOU!