More Collage Drawings

Am I now addicted to drawing little faces and critters on folded paper?  Maybe!

 I woke up this morning and wanted to try something as different as possible from the previous fun project as I could - and this is how it turned out.  I'm not certain what will go on the back of this little group.

I do think that my creative self is flexing her muscles as I get ready to try something different with fabric.  I wonder what it will look like.......

Collage Faces - A Different Approach

The previous post shows where how this latest little adventure started - a blank page and then some scraps of an Italian grammar book pasted down.  Here is a small copy of that almost blank page so you can compare it to the finished product and see how the shapes influenced the designs.

The direction the scraps of paper pointed me is especially evident in the lady with the hat.  Who would have thought of a hat? 

So this project was really fun and I enjoyed the various layers.  I painted over the pages with gesso to make the printing less evident.  Then painted the faces and surrounding area with Inktense Blocks.  Then drew in their facial features.  Then went "Yuck.  Boring".

I had not added any of the clothes at this point so I got out a box of old scraps of deli paper that I had gel printed years ago.  Can you tell that I keep everything?  I was really glad that I had these papers because they are so thin that they are easy to tear and glue down.

Once the clothes were in place I decided to keep going because I was having so much fun.   Here are some larger photos so you can see the details.

I added papers to the hat to add depth and interest, the hat lady's hair, the red hair, and the purple hair.

So there I was with this little foldy thing with faces on one side.  And nothing on the other.  What to do?  I didn't want to make four more faces but I didn't want it to be blank either.  Hmmm.  I had really enjoyed playing with the deli paper and I wanted to have some reference to faces to make it seem related to the other side...... and this is what happened.  The faces are sort of ghostly and floating but I like them.  So - project finished.  I wonder what will pop into my head next?

Collage Faces - In a Different Way

This is my second try at a series of collage or drawn faces.  Once again I started with an 11" x 15" sheet of watercolor paper and folded it and tore it in half lengthwise.  Then folded those pieces too.

The top photo shows how WHITE it looked.  Once again even to my brave eyes it looked a bit overwhelming.  So I tried a technique that I learned years ago - tear some pieces of magazine or book pages into random shapes and just glue them down.  No particular pattern. 

These pages are from an Italian grammar book.  I haunt the library free book events to get weird old books that I don't feel guilty tearing into.

The next step is to put a layer of gesso over the entire sheet.  This softens the paper shapes so they provide a vague guide but are not terribly specific.  And the gesso makes the surface toothy so it can easily be drawn and painted.  Who knows? This may or may not work - but it will be fun to try.

Collage Faces

I had fun playing with this idea.  Check out the previous post to see where it all started.

I started fussing around with the space and adding faces of all types.  With no particular plan in mind.  No matchy-matchy stuff here!




And I like the overall design.  I'm not going to fold it into the pages like I originally planned.  Actually I'm not sure what I will do with it - other than appreciate it for just plain being fun.

I think I will try a similar idea only draw the faces instead of using collage.  More freedom?  Maybe.

My creative muse is enjoying this playtime activity.

Small Face Collage

I am sort of poking about with ideas this week.  It is the week between Christmas and New Years and that is always an island of time with no particular plans for me.

And here is the first page of my idea.  I saw a folded little book full of collage faces on a site and liked the thought of having them all live together in a single project.  So I folded an 11" x 15" piece of watercolor paper in half vertically and then into rectangular shapes - one for each face.

And WOW was that flat white piece of paper overwhelming looking.  Yikes.  No idea where to start.  So I opened one of my many drawers of paper bits and started gluing chunks of random paper to the bottom of the pages  I think I will leave the page intact and just start adding faces and see where it goes. 

Maybe the hair of the faces on the bottom half will wind in with the hair of the faces on the top half?  Or not.

Magic Seeds

I made this quilt this past week.  On a whim.  I did not have any particular plan except I wanted to see if I could make a whole person in fabric. 

I traced a figure from a fashion magazine (it is really strange how they have models pose).  And no that person did not have pointy little hands and poky little feet and spikes coming out of their head!  But those embellishments seemed to grow as I put the fabric down. 

And sparkly Magic Seeds seemed to be necessary to add some action to the figure.

I may try this with the same design but a completely different fabric to see how that affects the energy of the piece.

This may lead to a class ---- using traced figures and finding the perfect fabric to communicate an idea.  Hmmmmm........

Winter - Finally

I finished the last quilt of my Earthwise Series. 

The last post that I made of this series was Fall on September 30.  Wow did it ever take a long time for me to finally get around to completing this series.

I have thought about why it took so long.  I think that it was choosing fabric that looked like Winter.  I kept thinking "blue and icy" but could not find fabric that inspired me.  And I was, frankly, scared to cut out the snowflakes with the Scan'nCut.  What would I do if the snowflakes did not work?

Amazing what fear can make one avoid trying. 

Anyway.  Here is the finished quilt.  I know the angle is a bit weird.  That is because all five of the Earthwise Series are hung along the stairway.  It is the only wall in the house that was large enough to hold them.  I like the way they look together and I am happy the series is finished. 

You may not be able to tell the sparkle of the fabric but there is a LOT of shiny sparkle in all of the fabrics.  Especially the snowflakes that are actually a fusible vinyl that is especially made for the Scan'nCut machine.  And the machine worked like a DREAM.  SO easy.  What a joy.  It actually makes me think about how to add more of this type of design to future quilts.




And here is a photo of all the quilts together on the wall