Up cyling a cheap commercial picture

I used to think this was a dead sophisticated picture which fitted in well to the "big" executive house we used to have.

It has been in our current dull bathroom - beige tiles and beige walls.  I recently invested in a brighter shower curtains which matched the stack of  blue/emerald towels we have. I thought some brighter paint may help and intended just to vamp the background of the pebbles.

Firstly the commercial "made in Taiwan" product was simply hot glued throughout. It was quite difficult to take apart and I was a bit worried the frame would collapse if I went too far. had to cut through the glue with a sharp modelling scalpel and in the end made a finger hole to be able to lift the layers of cardboard off.  disappointed in the "product" as other commercial pictures I have taken apart have at least had substantial wood frames.

Secondly, the layers of textured paper inside the picture the pebbles were stuck too were just poor quality faded tissue paper. So the plan to introduce bright colours by simply painting around the centre bit went out the window for now. Although I may revise with some scraps of wallpaper I have stored, somewhere.

I was playing about with some abstract shapes formed with acrylic paint and a palette knife on card when  two shapes of figures began to emerge.  I worked on this for a while and for now, it will uplift the bathroom a bit.

Ta - dah!

Have you tried updating pictures?