Goodness me I’m looking forward to the day this month when I actually like what I’m producing. I don’t mind that I don’t really like any of it so far because the process is good and I’ve suddenly given myself permission to do stuff that has no meaning to me {uncomfortable but Good To Do}.
Plus you just don’t know what’s going to come up when you have no investment in the outcome of what you’re doing, and that’s kind of exciting. Possibility is my favourite word, after all.
Before I started this bad boy I had a vague idea in my head about the artists I’ve seen who use simple collage behind beautiful, spare, minimalist drawings. That’s not what happened here, but it was my starting point.
I had some fun picking out pieces from my ridiculously huge collage materials mountain, and used some gold transfers and some linen as well as various papers.
I was very pleased to discover the brown paper that I painted the feathers on; it was torn out of an old spiral book I had and has yellowed very pleasingly around the edges, as well as being nice and feathery when you tear it.
I do love these colours, and feather shapes.
Then I went in and painted here and there. Apparently I can’t not fill a page, no matter how minimalist I want to be. More is always more in this house.
I’ve gotta tell you, the ‘motivational words’ are really making me puke, but they were there lying about and I stuck them on in my happy sticking trance.
I might cover up the ‘be’, since the whole exercise was in fact powered by letting myself do what I liked, and then I might feel less pukey about it. There, meaning. 🙂 And I can always cut it up and use the bits I like best in another piece.
I am a little bit wondering why I don’t do a little thing like this every day, why I need Leah to make it something I let myself do. Sometimes we just need a bit of outside permission, I think.
Oooo Yay! Love collage – me!! And this is BRILLIANT!!! Very different for you but all the pieces mesh together so well to become a glorious whole! Do more collage!! Love those leaves!!!!!
x
i like the idea of the simple ‘let yourself’.
it’s so fun and freeing. and i think it has knock-on effects we don’t ever really notice. i did many collages, visual journal pages that were crap, but i know they unlocked something somewhere. and if nothing else, i learnt what i did NOT want my art to look like. lol
i also like everything about those feathers.
glad you stumbled into my place, so that i found yours.
I really love this….. and as you well know, you crack me up!
‘Pukey’… LOL
I enjoyed reading about the process you took to arrive at the final piece. It’s always interesting to see how different elements come together in a collage. The ones you chose work beautifully together.
I like the feather shapes too….great finish!
rofl — i find “inspirational words” to be uproariously pukey as well!!
i find i really suck at collage…which doesn’t stop me from doing it but then again, i almost always paint over it anyway…gets rid of the blank page so it serves a purpose. plus there are often some surprisingly cool results when i remember to turn off my brain and just glue shit down.
xo
Nice. I especially love the brown paper with the feathers! And “Let Yourself” is a great mantra for art…pukey or not 😉
What a great finished product and those feathers are just my favourite part of it … nice to see the process xx
Don’t knock it, I think it’s come out brilliantly.
I really struggle with collage. I can never quite find the balance, it suddenly goes from ‘too little’ to ‘way to much’.
Oh well, maybe with parctice 🙂