MIXED MEDIA PLAY

 

Ever notice that as soon as you set yourself some kind of goal you immediately start thinking of other things you'd like to do? Well. Maybe if you are not an ENFP (Look! a bird! 🐦) you don't have this problem. Alas I am. I have this goal of filling up my sketchbook and every time I sit down to do something I freeze. Even though I've confronted  the Curse of the Masterpiece, I haven't developed the armor that deflects it. 

Last weekend I decided to just play with the pencil, practicing noses - and face proportions. I still tend to make the space between eye and nose tip too long, giving faces a Mannerist look (long, narrow faces and limbs) It happened again this time, but not to such an extent I couldn't do something with this sketch.

I've been slightly obsessed with paper dolls lately and
have found that I love using magazine paper to make the doll clothes. I love the shiny paper. I love using photographs to create a fabric look. I really love to cut out paper shapes. And I adore vivid, contrasting colors. (You'll never see me in monochrome) 

This girl really needed a background so I sponged a little watercolor blue around the edges of the page, first watered down, then with slightly more pigment. Not sure if I wanted two tones or not, I experimented with another color in a place that I knew would later be covered by collage papers. Nope. Two shades of blue were just right. 

To get the shapes of the collage head pieces I had to trace around her head and then create templates that I could use to cut out the colored papers. I love tracing paper - you can use it so many ways. And big shapes like these can be filled with little shapes I might want for some other project.

I cut the templates out of sketching paper and didn't keep them since they are unique to this drawing. 

The cutout pieces came from a gardening magazine with pictures consisting of bright and dark colors. The butterflies came from a gift bag.

Even though I'd traced the face, those curves around the left side of the portrait (the model's right cheek) were difficult to fit. The small curve in the eye allowed for a pivot point that could send the larger neck curve deep into her throat or way out into the left corner of the paper. And one thing to be aware of .... 

Magazine paper has a lot of static in it!

Every time I'd lay one piece down, static would pull another piece towards it. In the end I found I had to put a dab of glue stick on the cutouts and quickly slip the next piece down with another little dab of glue. And before I was done I had to add some more dark colored paper along the bottom. I also added a shoulder shape. 

The butterflies were a lot easier to play with because the paper was matte and heavier. You can see here that I lay them out in several positions till I got the look I wanted.

The final decoration was a fringe along the headpiece of shiney gold washi tape. I'm still getting used to handling this material but I really like the effect it has in collage. Especially paper doll and portrait collage. 

This was a fun project to do that fit well with the rest of the sketchbook contents. Collage takes time because it uses so many disciplines; conceptuatization, cutting, color selection, spacial manipulation, glue stick wrestling .... 

I hope this inspires some of you to give it a try.