More Creative Ideas

I taught a workshop last week, Creative Collage Techniques at Jerry’s Artarama in Raleigh. We all had a great time! Here are a couple of photos…

 

Friday in the studio turned out to be a very productive day! I experimented withDr. Ph. Martin’s Hydrus Watercolor Set #2. OH MY! They are wonderfully rich and vivid colors! I don’t normally use watercolors, but I had some of these in my studio and thought what the heck. So I got out some watercolor paper and first I just painted lines on the watercolor paper to see the color clearly and to see how far it spread across the paper. These paints are liquid and come with a squeeze eye dropper. You basically take some of the pigment into the dropper and put it to the paper. I squeezed out about an inch long line, then took a wet brush and pulled it across the length of the paper. I then labeled the paper, so I could remember the colors I wanted in my next experiment.

Next, I chose a limited palette and started experimenting with paper, pigments, wax paper and Saran wrap. I wet the paper down with water, then squirted the pigment from the dropper onto the surface, watching it disperse and suspend in the water. Next I tore and crumpled wax paper and laid the pieces on the surface, then squirted the paint underneath. Once I did this in several different areas, I covered the whole thing with Saran wrap, patted in down in certain areas, and set it aside to dry. I did a total of four sheets.

These will definitely make their way into some of my future collages!

And speaking of future collages, here are some of the new pieces I knocked out. I was really on a roll!

The first ones are made with some of my stash of hand painted papers. I collaged these onto Multimedia Artboards, then I embellished them at the sewing machine! The image you see on the link is also one of my pieces.

 

These were all done on SoHo Urban Artists Painting Panels. These panels are a great bang for your buck! You get 5 boards in a pack in all kinds of different sizes and you can also purchase these in bulk for your students! Please note: When you do collage on these boards, they tend to warp a bit with the addition of mediums used to adhere with. The solution: squirt the back of your finished collage with a bit of water, place on newsprint or plastic and weight down with books from your studio and voila! You now have a nice even flat collage ready to frame in the morning!