Filed under: Collage | Tags: art, artist, Collage, Mixed media, painting, visual art
So, this weekend…I took an afternoon collage class with Alexandra Sheldon. She is a local artist, who began as a painter…but now also does collage. Her work is so beautiful, and she has an amazing, intuitive sense about composition. She is also extremely enthusiastic, which creates a very fun atmosphere. This class was focused on edges in collage. We looked at hard/soft edges, their relation to one another and to the collage’s perimeter, and used all sorts of interesting techniques to create our collage material. I much prefer to use “made” material for a collage, rather than found material. I always struggle with found material…as it may have text that I don’t want, or simply be too strong of a singular image.
Here’s my first one…it took a little time to get “warmed up”:
I like the colors. Here is the next one…Alexandra suggested that I add the orange curve on the left…I’m glad that she did!
I think that cutting out the orange curve (hard edged), was not something that I would have thought of, but I like it. Here is the next one:
I really like the colors on that one. This is the next one:
That was one of my “exercises in restraint”. I was testing out different pieces, and another classmate said that the orange piece on the right was good. I agree! The last one:
My classmates liked the turquoise blue next to the yellow. I liked this one as well. I do think that the last one shows improvement over the first one. I guess this is typical…it takes a little time of working to just get “in the zone”. Alexandra suggested this might happen as the left side of the brain eventually stops interfering, when it isn’t being asked to participate. Interesting! I’d often like to tell the left side of my brain to “chill out” when it’s whining about things not being EXACTLY right, whatever that means.
I went to the Danforth Museum this week. I love that place. They had an exhibit of works by a local artist, Adria Arch. I really liked her painting…they almost looked screen printed to me. She works with “doodles”, or abstract symbols. I found that really interesting. Another artist also had work there: Elizabeth Keithline. I LOVED her work. She made figures out of wire which were amazing. It was really almost like looking at a computer generated wireframe of a human form, but it was standing in the room with you. I liked the fact that the forms were clearly handmade, and not overly precise, as a computer would do. Really extraordinary. Go see this show immediately, as it is going down on June 5. So worth it.
Happy Memorial Day!
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slightly wonky 