….#3 of the transparency film collages
I’m really enjoying this technique and as promised I tried something other than flowers. One of my random cuts turned out to look like a duck so I built a landscape around him. I can only assume he’s a he because of his bright colours. I added some marker detail on the duck, such as an eye and feathers. After gluing everything down I felt there was too much white so I added a wash of colour with my Winsor Newton Promarkers.
….I’m loving this technique
I think I should come up with something other than flowers for the next collage but the the pieces I’ve already cut up will probably determine where I go from here.
….the first collage using the moon papers
After cutting up some of the printed transparency film I started to arrange the shapes onto one of the papers that I thought would make a nice background. Before gluing the pieces down I took a photo so that I would know what order and where to glue the pieces when I was reassembling the abstract still life.
Once all the pieces where glued in place I started to add some detail with white, black, gold and green gel. I think it helped bring some life into the piece.
…the beginning of Lesson Two for 2019: The Year of the Collage
Carla Sonheim has named these papers, ‘moon papers’ because the results looks like the surface of the moon.
The process involves using a Gelli plate with a layer of fluid acrylic. After the paint has been applied evenly you lay down a sheet of transparency film and press it into the paint using your fingertips. The goal is to try and make craters and interesting patterns on the film. I experimented with different paints and different papers. One of the papers I really liked using was the vellum paper.
Using the film allows for interesting colours to emerge when you overlap two different colours. You can see from the first photo how the colours change and peek through when overlapped. The next step is to take these papers and cut them up into organic shapes and create new collages. The hard part is going to decide which ones to cut up and what kind of shapes to make.
….to lesson two
Here’s the last random collage from lesson one that I just finished. I may go back later and do a couple more but for now I’m satisfied with what I’ve accomplished and I am anxious the try my hand at ‘moon papers’. Don’t worry if you don’t know what that is. I’ll explain in the next post.
For this collage I started with the tree trunk. After much searching I found the illustration of the girl meditating and it went from there. I decided to try my hand at adding lines of stitching. I picked up this idea from Jill Kuhn who is also doing the class, 2019: A Year of Collage. Jill is a wonderful source of inspiration and constantly praises what I do. Thank you Jill.
….with my 8 random collage pieces
This is number five. Even though lesson two has appeared in my mailbox I’m hesitant to start it until I get a least a couple more of the random collages done. I struggled with this one and didn’t know where I wanted to go with it. I decided to just pick up my pen and start adding detail to the blue waterfall that I had posted into my sketch book. It did remind me of the body of an emu or an ostrich so I decided to turn it into some kind of bird. As the bird neared completion I added a horizon line and then the little bits and pieces came out to make a landscape scene.
One of the other reasons I haven’t started lesson two is because it requires a lot of space to lay out the papers made with the Gelli plate. I’ve been deliberately cleaning out boxes of things that I brought with me after I retired from teaching. Purging feels real good and it’s gives me a bit more space to put up another table in my art space. This one is collapsable and can be stored under my bed when I’m not using it. I’ve also wanted to do some sewing and use my machine for some of my art projects. The only place I had for the sewing machine was on my dining room table which isn’t ideal either. This new table will also come in handy for the machine. It adjusts to three different heights so I can stand at it and work, sit at it with the sewing machine and the third height is lower and will come in handy when my granddaughter comes over to do art with me.
….turns out I have another week before the next lesson
I thought I would never be able to get all eight of my collage pages that Carla Sonheim assigned us to do before the next lesson. Well there was no new lesson this week because the lessons happen every two weeks. That’s probably why we’re given so many projects to do. There is, however, no pressure to do all of them but since I have the time now I went back to my sketch book and completed my fourth piece.
This one started with a stone monolith and I added an owl face from an Inuit artist named Laakuluk Williamson Bathory. I didn’t know where to go with this piece until I found a picture of a large snake. I decided to make this one fun so I added some speech balloons and small critters reacting to the snake.
….#3 of 8
I’m not sure I’ll get to the other 5 pages before the new lesson comes up but there’s no pressure to do all eight pages. This new page started with the hand drawn coffee mug that I cut out. I then added the bowl of fruit and drew a table around it and the mug. I added the cloud shapes and placed the orange circle partially under the cloud to look like the sun was peaking out from the clouds. I added a small bird perched on the edge of the coffee mug and then I added line detail.
The last step was to add some colour with watercolour crayons and I drew in some plant material with my pencil crayons.
….collage #2 of 8
This collage morphed into a political statement, although I don’t understand how science has, in this day and age, become political.
The collage started out with the big orange circle. Then I found the orange steer and layer it over some orange sky and desert like conditions. I added the umbrella for protection from the sun on one side and the acid rain on the other. The dark eyes at the top of the page could represent the evil nay sayers blinded by what they see before them. You can interpret this anyway you like.
….the first assignment from Carla Sonheim’s Year of Collage
After dividing a page in my sketchbook into equal squares I took a handful of small bits of paper from magazines and my own art papers and thoughtfully placed them on the grid. Here is my finished piece.
The second part of this assignment is to take eight pages in my sketch book and glue one medium sized piece of paper on each page. Then we’re so suppose to go back and add some line and/or another piece of paper. We keep doing this to all eight pages until we feel we’re done. It’s okay to skip some pages and come back later. This is proving to be more challenging for me.
Mama Cormier 