Collage and discoveries

In one of my drawing classes we had to do an assigment on Collages, I thought this was going to be easy. However, since I hadn't done collage since grade school I thought it might be a good idea to get some references and ideas, and so I went to the book store and bought "Creative Collage Techinques, A step-by-step guide including 52 demonstrations and the work of over 60 artists." by Nita Leland & Virginia Lee Williams. I do recommand this book to anyone who is interested in doing Collages, it gives you a great overview into the world of Collage Art.

Soon after opening the book, I was amazed at what you could do with this medium, the infinite possibilities. I got real excited about the collage assignment and I started to gather everything I could put my hands on that could be used in a collage. So far so good, then I started to panick and stress out, and now, as I am writing this I am also realizing how my creative process works and how I go through the same phases each time I start a new assignment, fear of not delivering something worthy.


In my mind everything is easy, but materializing it becomes stressful especially when it is an assignment. Million ideas float around my mind and usually this is where they stay, well, I won't go there this is for later post...

Anyhow, assignments are different than free creativity because of the expectations I think others have of me and that scares me. However, when I approach a personnal project I am free of that and I just go at it without giving it too much thought.

So, for the collage project I thought I would use a burlap background, this felt organic and I wanted to pass a message through the collage, an environmental one. Then I got lucky one day while I was at Michel's studio (my hubby and photographer) he was cleaning up shop and throwing out film cut outs, a mere save I recuperated them, I really wanted to integrate these in the collage, recycling...why not?

Also, in the dumpster I found boxes of old magazines, specialty magazines for Illustrators and Printers, these were a wonderful source of collage materials and ideas. I am a bit of squirl, I accumulate things...I am not a horder, but I can't resist anything made of paper, somehow I feel paralyzed when I try to throw any of it out.

My two pieces ended up being about recycling: time, old magazines and film.

Also, in doing this post I found some intersting Websites on Collages that I would like to share with you :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collage
http://www.abstract-art-information-inspiration.com/Techniques.html
Amazing collages by Daniela Akerblom:
http://www.flipimage.ca/collages/
Interesting collages by Dorene Lehavi:
http://www.collagesbydorene.com/
Jonathan Talbot : Painter and Collage Artist
http://www.jonathantalbot.com/
Bob & Julia Kilvert
http://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/h-art/North_211.aspx
Here are a couple of Websites with several collage artists
http://www.collageart.org/links/
http://www.collageartists.org/artists.html


My favorite Picasso and Braque's works are collages. I find they were avant-gardist to use this medium to express themselves, and in doing so they revatalized this art form in their time.

Finally my final project

This is it, last Friday was the last day of school and my last presentation. I was supposed to be in the first group, but because of traffic I was late and ended up in the second group.

As I walked in the class room the first group had finished hanging their work and I was impressed by the quality of the work I saw. This year this class had a lot of talented and promising artists, most of them showed great commitment to their art and it was really refreshing to see.
Then came my turn, I was a bit timid about showing my work, I did not think this was my best work and choosing the Iris theme as a short cut for me eventhought I had never done flowers. I was uncertain on how the critique was going to go, and got better feedback than I expected.
The first minute everyone was quiet, like no one really knew what to say, then someone spoke and expressed her feelings toward the work. Then the rest jumped in and they played around with the presentation by moving the pieces around and although the bigger pieces lacked in composition they still got good comments, and we all decided that the darker iris actually made more sense upside down. They felt that the lighter one was looser and the colours softer, more intuitive compare the cripness of the other, and they were right

The darker iris's were more controled I was feeling my way with the subject, trying to get the shapes believable and the colours to match reality. I believe I was stressing too much and overworked that first piece.

I attacked the second one from a different angle, I wanted to go looser, more abstract, half way through I realize I was repeating the pattern of the firt piece and tightning my brush strokes. I manage to back away again and stop myself to make it crisper.


I enjoyed making the egg tempera more so than the bigger pieces, I felt they were more in tuned with my inner self; they also got better reviews, the concensus was that they were more myterious and borderline abstract with a better composition. They also liked the touch of red in all of them.




Finally, I felt relieved from the week of stress leading to that day. I also felt sadness in this being the last class of the year. I don't know exactly what I will be taking next semester, I signed up for several classes and will decide then which I will keep. I really would like to attend full time and I will figure out a way to make it happen, otherwise I will continue on a part time basis.



From now until next September, I will concentrate my spare time in applying everything I have learned this year and show you my progress with my on going projects.

There are many things I would like to explore, collages being one of the things I want to push further, along with egg tempera as well. I also want to explore the different ways I can actually engage in creating art pieces that will push the viewer to ask questions or get involve in various causes.

I thank everyone that has taken the time to read my blog and I hope you will keep on doing so. Don't forget that your comments are welcome.

Back to the project

I was hoping to work on my project all weekend long, however life had other plans for me. Still, it turned out to be an interesting weekend, it was a good thing it was a long weekend.

As I mentioned previously I decided to make the project about a series of painting about Iris's so I went and bought myself some deep blue Iris at the market, I got them before they bloomed.

The following day they had started to open up, and I was hoping I would be able to sketch and maybe do some watercolour, but or maybe because it was a beautiful sunny day, sketching did not happen. We had visitors instead and that worked ended out to be a good thing for me because I got to talk about how I was stressed about the project and how I had switched subjects half way through it.

My friends really liked the concept of the shoes in a woman's life, but I got so uptight about it thinking that I did not have enough time to do it right, that I froze and beside doing a couple of sketches (that I did not like) I could not get really started.

However, even though I changed the subject matter to flowers thinking it was going to be easy, the same thing happened. I wanted perfection and froze again. Fortunately, my friends managed to share their experiences and parted with a bit of wisdom. Therefore, I decided to just do it, jump into the project and see what happens. I believe that having a relaxing day with friends was better than stressing out all day about the project. I guess I needed to relax and stop thinking about it so I could get back to it with a better attitude.

Then, Easter came and that was a family day, so no time for drawing or painting either, another break. Meantime, I decided not to stress anymore and today, I spent the day in my studio preparing my wooden panels for the tempera and I started the two canvas of field of Iris.

Now, the problem with glazing is that it needs to dry before applying more glazes, so today I worked all day and advanced the underpainting as much as I could. Fortunately, I had started one of the canvas last week, but I had to make some adjustments, it was to tight, to static. See the pictures of both canvas one on top of the other. I decided to approach the project in a more relaxed matter and maybe be a bit looser with my brushes.


Tomorrow, I will start the under paintings of the small wooden panels. I will have to take a day off this week to finish the project for Friday morning and I have to bake a banana bread for our Final Crit morning.

I will do the shoe project on my own without the deadline pressure.

The dogs

Meet my new kids Fanny and Charlie, I know they have nothing to do with painting and drawing, but I need to talk about my dogs because they take a lot of time and space in my life. First came Fanny the terrier (terror), I fell for her after stopping at Pet Shop to look at the animals, we had lost our dog a few months prior and we were still mourning her. So, every time we went to the hardware store I would stop at the Pet Shop while waiting for my husband, and Fanny became a familiar face, patiently waiting her adoption, after a month I wondered why no one had picked her, after two months of watching her I just could not leave her there anymore, I had to take her home.

The Pet Shop must have been a traumatic experience for her because she was terrified of children. I can just imagine having to put up with kids coming to knock on the glass and making all kinds of faces and noises, from the stand point of the animal in the glass case, after two months of that treatment I can understand her dislike of the munchkins.


At the time we were in the process of moving, and my husband had agreed to put her on a lay away until after the move, but when I put down the deposit for her, I could not leave her there like I would a dress as far as I was concerned she had been in that glass box long enough, so I took her that day and she behaved really well in the car, almost like she felt she belonged. Sure, Michel and I had a bit of an argument but it did not take him long to see it my way.

Charlie came a year later through a friend of my daughter who was living with us for a couple of months one night he bought Charlie from a homeless kid, he brought it to our house without consulting us, Charlie was 6 weeks old, he was so cute and looked like a Jack Russel at least he did for a few weeks before it became obvious that he wasn’t, and we still don’t know what he is, we can only guess that he may have some Akita, German Sheppard, Colley and whatever else. Anyhow, we said that he could not keep him so he tried to give it away, but kids have no clues about puppies beside the fact that they are cute and lovable, so every couple of days Charlie would be returned. After the third return, we decided to keep him. We lived in the city at the time and my daughter and my brother were both living with us, so we never really had to think about the dogs, there was always someone there to take care of their needs.

Because of the dogs, we met some wonderful people that became good friends, and we organized all kinds of theme meetings at the park, we had Halloween night in the park and everyone dressed up, I wish we had taken pictures! We had Friday night’s wine and dine in the park, than we started to get together for a birthday, the elections and between Canada, Quebec and USA there was a lot of elections going on in 2009. We got together to try different restaurants in the area. All and all, the dogs really enhanced our social life.


However, all this changed when we moved to the country because there was just my husband and I with full time jobs in the city. We had to come up with a plan, and we posted an ad to find someone to come mid day and spend an hour with them. Fortunately we did find someone and she is great with them and it helps us feel better about leaving them all day long.

Well, they are fun, they provide us with unconditional acceptance, the perfect welcoming committee, always happy to see us arrive even if we’ve only been gone for 5 minutes, time doesn’t seem to matter to them. We spend a lot of time with Fanny and Charlie they both have very distinctive personalities and their own ways to interact with us and with each other. My favourite time with them is when we go on excursions in the woods behind the house, we can be gone for hours and they just love it, Charlie zigzags the forest while Fanny just sniffs everything imaginable. Watching Charlie run and jump in nature is just pure joy, and if we come across any body of water you can bet Charlie will be jumping right in.

It is not always good times, sometimes they get sick and that is no fun for anyone, we end up doing a lot of cleaning up. Other times I wish I did not have to rush home after work but I know I must because the dogs have been alone for too long.

Overall, when the kids leave the nest, pets are the next best thing, it allows you to still be a caregiver and watch beings that have mastered the secret of being in the moment! They can be real delightful to watch.