Tag Archives: collage

Jen’s Challenge Week 3

monoprint1, originally uploaded by Charger’s Mommy.

This is one of the monoprints I made last night as part of Jen’s Weekly Challenge. I used the stencil resist method and went with a heart theme for upcoming V-Day. The extra heart on the left side is the cut-out that was used as the resist for the print. Basically I had some pieces of plexi-glass in my collage bin, I smeared some blue and red acrylic paint on it and moved it around with my brushes. Then I placed a cut out heart on the paint and then printed with some pieces of paper that already had images or background printing on them. I wanted a very layered look. Finally, scanned this after over 30 mins of downloading new drivers and restarting numerous times to get my old scanner to work with the new vista computer… ahhhh technology!

Peter Clark

This guy uses paper in a way I have dreamed of! these pieces seem to be 3-dimensional and have so much detail and texture. They are wonderful! He has a dog series that looks pet-able and a clothing series that look wearable. The website is easy to navigate too.

Check it out!

Collage Unleashed

So yesterday Shawn wanted to trade in his car for a new sporty one… (perhaps a mid-life crisis thing?) Anyhow, I had to go along since my name is on the loans, but I knew it would be HOURS of boring sitting and number crunching. So I brought a stack of books to read and view to entertain myself. I actually READ through the entire Collage Unleashed by Traci Bautista. I have been planning to do some projects out of this book for a while, perhaps even ALL of them like Eliza is doing, and I already did do one for Jen’s challenge last week. Lots of great ideas in there. BUT I really need to organize my studio so that I can get going on some of them. Luckily the two go hand in hand as Jen’s Challenge this week is Mono-printing and that is also in Traci’s book. So if I could only convince myself to clean off my desk!

While reading and waiting I also made it mostly through The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery by Karen Michel and Free-Style Quilts by Susan Carlson.

I think I was MOST inspired by the Free-Style Quilts since fabric is really what I want to be doing… part of me wants to just purge ALL my paper stuff… and make more room for fabric stuff. But I still do like to create with paper sometimes and it hurts to thinking of getting rid of so much stuff. I know I could just take it all to school and therefore still have access to it, while letting the kids use it. But even that sounds like a huge chore.

I am working on a “hand” series right now… though it is mostly in development phase right now. While looking through Free-Style Quilts, I realized this picture would make a great fabric or paper collage…. so next will be sketchs and patterns to turn this into some arty goodness…

stay tuned!

Making Window Collages

So a few people have asked about how I make my window collages. A few years ago, I taught a workshop on how to do this technique on a smaller scale, some of the images shown here are from this workshop and NOT my artwork, but they show the process. I shared these steps in an online lecture at EBSQ. You can read more from that 2004 workshop at EBSQ.

The windows are a long PROCESS. And admittedly I haven’t taken on the task since I moved my studio to the attic some 3 years ago. I only have a little pull-down ladder access to my studio so hauling up big heavy windows from the basement hasn’t been a priority. I have been adapting this technique to fabric instead. But if they start selling at the gallery I will need to get back in gear with this style of collage. I still have several windows waiting for their transformation and even sketches from the hand series that I began. My paper collection has not dwindled by any means… but could use some reorganization. So this gallery opening has in fact been an inspiration and motivation to get back with it.

So here is how I create my window collages….

Continue reading →

Color Tag “directions”

1) obsessively collect paper and fabric for over 20 years
2) obsess about the color purple so much that you paint the inside and the outside of the house purple

 

3) let your studio become a complete disaster

4) finally sort everything and set aside all purple papers and images as you sort

5) sew together all these scraps on your mother’s old singer sewing machine in crazy quilt style.

6) add ribbon and other fabric elements where they fit

7) run out of papers you like and decide to make more

8) create more purple papers

8a) get white and off-white papers with images and writing and texture

8b) scribble over with purple and magenta water soluable oil pastels

8c) blend with water and silver paint

8d) hang on your cool corkboard room border to dry

9) create other “elements”

9a) get old browned paper letter stencils

9b) scribble over with purple and magenta water soluable oil pastels

9c) blend with water and silver paint

10) keep backing papers of both experiments of 8 & 9 and added stamped/stencil letters in dark purple rubber stamp ink

11) sew new papers together
12) when satisfied with a “quilt” cut out card stock tags of proper size and sew to quilt. then cut out each tag.

13) attempt to be satisfied and not continue messing with it or you will ruin it!

(created for http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArtErratica/ swap May 2006)