New painting to fill a space

So as you've seen we repainted the basement and it looks great- but that of course means I wanted to update pictures/artwork around the room to match the new lighter/brighter mood. I also felt it was time to remove what looked like a shrine to my wedding (I've been married 7.5 years and I don't need half my pictures on the walls to be wedding ones). The biggest culprit was based purely on size - I had a huge picture (that came free from my photographer when booking) that was an 11 x 17 (my photographer turned out to have no idea  how to take a picture of a large group, so the odd size is because at a standard size family members would be cropped out) and therefore was the largest piece of 'artwork' in my basement. (See it there on the far wall in the center?) This picture is impressive only because of the sheer volume of people - it's something like 27.

It was time to move on. We were married and felt it was time to have some artwork. As we are hosting a friend thanksgiving this weekend (a bunch of friends come over pot-luck style to have a traditional thanksgiving meal without the stress of family :) ) this is the second one we've hosted and I really wanted to have the basement ready for the event. We'll be having between 15-17 people over so the table will be set up down here. That meant I needed to do some painting to fill the space.

I decided to use the same frame (I have no additional money for this right now) so that meant it had to be on a normal sheet of paper because this is a floating frame. I was thinking something with blues and greens and grays to play off the room's colors and on a handmade paper that would have cool torn edges. But I was wrong (the paper is cool, but other than that I don't love this)! Here's what I painted. It's an abstract watercolor of some lily pad like items and reeds. There are a few problems with this- first is the colors. This just doesn't stand out...at all. It would have looked great... when the walls were burgundy (go figure). But just doesn't speak to me on the gray-blue walls. Second is the content - I painted this because it was all I could think of and I have no connection to lily pads/reeds I don't particularly like abstract art even. It doesn't mean anything to me so it just doesn't work. Third thing wrong is the size. It is far too small for the space. This spot needs BIG artwork. Perhaps a tryptic. It's not in the budget right now, so this will stay for a little while until I can figure out what to paint and afford the canvas, but I will post what I put in it's place soon (as I don't want my guests to feel I like this).

See- I even post about my failures :) Don't you feel special for having read it.

Update: I realized- Wait a tic...I was an ART MAJOR! Certainly I have some artwork laying around my house that might work to avoid people thinking I think this looks good. Turns out I was right! (there's a first time for everything :) ) So I dug through and found...three pictures two from 2000 and one from 1999 with the same subject matter and that with a bit of trimming made a pretty successful tryptic (but still in the small frame I own). 

The one on the left is cross-hatching, the one in the center is the 1999 one - colored pencil I believe (with a blue and pink background), and the right is stippling. Not too bad. Probably will still replace it later, but definitely like this a heck of a lot more! It  also has the benefit of being able to be seen from across the room. Definitely an improvement.