So, my friend Jill from Wisconsin asked me a couple of months ago if I wanted to join her in making a collage once a week and sharing it on Facebook. We decided to post on Tuesdays, and both had a great time trying things out and seeing what the other one did. Here's the first batch I made, using 8x8 canvas board. I had not collaged in a long time, so I painted a background color on the first 3 canvas boards so I had something to start with.
 |
| Collage 1.1: Water of Love, copyright 2020 Linda Farrelly |
The first collage, Water of Love, was made using postcards from an art show, a couple of magazine pics, and some vellum. The vellum wrinkled a lot when I stuck it on with ModPodge, now that I know better I will try something else with vellum. The orangey-red background was my starting place. I picked things that would work with that color and narrowed it down until I like the composition. When the man with the pitcher found his place, I started hearing Water of Love by Dire Straits in my mind while I continued working. Besides the wrinkling, I am very happy with the composition and overall feel of the piece.
 |
| Collage 1.2: Inside Outer Space, copyright 2020 Linda Farrelly |
For Inside Outer Space, I was intrigued by a multicolor picture of probably 50 test tubes I found in a magazine. It was pretty large, so as I went along I kept cutting he circles apart a little at a time. I have a roll of funky wrapping paper with maps and globes and some ads I just used for texture to create more circles. These circles complemented the circles of the test tube tops. I was thinking about science, space, the natural world, and how it all fits together. I cut out a sweeping section of the wrapping paper to ground the composition, give it some weight. It is definitely a map, but it also suggests the Milky Way. I wanted to include something from nature (besides planets), so there's a butterfly and a rose to represent the animal and plant worlds. After everything was glued down and the ModPodge dried, I grabbed my markers and played around, adding shading and shadows, working the background. I have a couple of thoughts about what I could have done differently, but overall I enjoyed making it and am pleased with how it turned out.
 |
| Collage 1.3: Bees Have the Gift, copyright 2020 Linda Farrelly |
Bees Have the Gift was an offshoot of found poetry. The portion in the lower left with the face and yellow highlighted words were cut out of a found poetry page I did at a library class (anythinklibraries.org) last year. Once I find the words, I like to keep drawing with markers until it feels finished. The rest of the paper came from other parts of the book. This one was very relaxing to work on, the first one that wasn't stressful. I find it soothing to look at as well.
 |
| Collage 1.4: Sun Island, copyright 2020 Linda Farrelly |
This week I had no ideas, so I decided to try torn paper collage. I grabbed a few sheets of colored scrap paper, a magazine, and went to town. Loved the branch sculpture pictures, so that's where I started. The thing I'm liking about collage is the ability to compose on the fly: adding, subtracting, moving, and changing elements. This is the first one that has no drawing in it. Did not need it, and I thought it would take away from the piece instead of add something. I do love the way the paper color looks different on the surface than it does on the torn edges.
 |
| Collage 1.5: Super Adventure, copyright 2020 Linda Farrelly |
This collage was just super fun! We got three copies of the same advertising postcard in the mail, sent to 3 different people who live here. I threw the postcards, a canvas board, scissors, scrapbooking tape roller, an empty envelope for small pieces, and some markers in my go bag on my way out the door. On my work breaks, I cut things out. Before class began I started arranging the bits, and by the end of class I was finishing up with marker. It was good to know I could work on something over the course of a day that didn't have room for any art-specific time, and it was easy to carry around.
Sometime during the preceding 2 weeks, Jill started a Facebook group for this. Now we have 6-10 partners in crime. Always look forward to Tuesdays!
No comments:
Post a Comment