Monday, January 26, 2009

. . . found inspiration from




one of my photographs for this collage. . . at least that's how it started. The photograph was of an old wall in an industrial area. Thank goodness no one was forcing me to make an exact replica of that photograph, because of course I didn't. Just inspiration.


Today I must clean up the studio and gear back up for painting large. Betsy and Joe "helped" me down there last night, briefly. Both were attracted to the reddest paint, although Joe pretty much tried to help himself to anything he could reach. He found my old toaster oven (that I used to use for polymer clay beads) hidden away and he dragged it out and played with it. I think he will grow up to be a chef. . . he takes great delight in microwaves or ovens of all kinds. In the pantry I have an old microwave that is not hooked up. He can reach it and open it, and I am always finding little men or plastic animals or cookies on the racks. Betsy could be a lot of fun to hang out with in the studio, but not with Joey around, so I will have her come spend the day with me and we'll do art. She told me she was already the best artist in her class. Of course she is.


I'm curious to find out if my experimentation with painting paper and collage will have an effect on my painting. I hope so. I'm tempted to try to recreate some of my favorite small collages on a larger scale, and on canvas. I paint flat, on canvas that is not on stretcher bars, but it is stretched somewhat on my painting surface. I'm worried that the collage papers I attach to the flat canvas will somehow not stay attached. I have used tissue paper as texture on some of my previous paintings, with no ill effects. Maybe I'm over-thinking this problem. Does anyone have any advice?

2 comments:

Elis Cooke said...

Hi Mary
I find collage papers can be glued with acrylic medium just fine on canvas [but have only collaged on stretched canvas] I tend to stick with thinner papers [like washi/tissue/handmade/copy] as they have less sizing and are easier to manipulate. I can't think of any reason it should be different on unstretched canvas... the only thing that occurs to me is to maybe stay away from the sides where it would get wrapped/stretched around bars as it could maybe crack??? Looking forward to seeing how this goes! I suspect the incorporating collage will bring a whole new aspect to your larger works! namaste Elis.

Mary Buek said...

Elis, thanks for the hints. I think you're right about using thinner papers, and keeping them away from the sides. I am going to experiment today using a small canvas.