Day 4 was chock full o' manual labor...sanding,
moncler doudoune, staining, and hammering, mixed with some collaging and painting. Gridlock Wood Collage was taught by another well known mixed media artist, Karen Michel. She has authored books on altering photographs and being a 'green' artist, and has been published in magazines like Cloth Paper Scissors. In fact, I signed up for her class after seeing her Gridlock Wood Collage article in CPS. I was enamored by the project and wanted to make one of my own. Actually, I made 2. Again,
ugg boots sale, I wanted to put my own spin on the project so it didn't end up looking exactly like something Karen would make, so I chose to use an Asian theme for my first one. I had bought a bag of Asian ephemera a while back and couldn't figure out what to use it for. This turned out to be the perfect opportunity.
I used some buttons I had been collecting and some handpainted papers I made for the second project. I also chose to use a background of potato sack-like paper for an added twist.
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Last year one of the classes I took was with Gail Russakov,
and I liked it so much that I decided to take another this year, Tasty
Textured Squares. She is a great and very inventive artist and couldn't
wait to see what she had in store for us. Plus she is originally from NJ
so she's got to be okay. But I digress...This year we got out magazine articles, textured wallpaper, Elmer's glue, Never Dull,
ugg boots ireland,
paint and oil pastels and created these masterpieces. The first image
is all of the class's creations and the second is the one I made. The
technique we used to create these squares is like magic. Who knew you
could create such a thing by using cheap ol' Elmer's glue and a product
that ensures your tires stay shiny?
nbsp;Telling a Story with Jacqueline SullivanThe
second class I took that day taught us how to make a collage out of
images that told a story. The pictures in the examples for the class had
majestic men with stern looks on their faces standing near huge marble
pillars. As always, I had to put my own spin on things. And as always,
the spin revolved around one of my pets. This time I used my
beautiful Dora, a very frightening pit bull mix (I say that very
sarcastically, she has no clue she's a pit bull nor does her brother,
Peabrain). I am lucky enough to know the moron that let his dogs breed
by mistake which resulted in these puppies being born, so I have
pictures of them since their first day on earth. The story I wanted to
tell was the progression of her growing up from a newborn to an adult
dog, so I brought pictures of her at different stages. After spending
hours trying to arrange them on the page and trying to figure out a
composition that made some sort of sense, I ended up putting hats,
dresses and wings on all of them to make it look like she is the mom and
the little ones are her pups. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the result
that Jacqueline was looking for, and I think I came close to pushing her
over the edge after I winged and hatted them all, but oh well.
Ironically, the other ladies in the class used frogs and reptiles as
their subjects which I thought was interesting. I am usually the only
crazy one pulling out pictures of frogs and other animals for my
artwork.nbsp;
nbsp;Sidenote... Guess where I got the wings, hats and dresses for the collage? I bought them from Gail Russakov who was selling collage sheets at
the shopping extravaganza! Apparently she makes them out of magazine
images. That lady really knows how to manipulate magazines!
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