Lately, I’ve been enjoying the challenge of tackling different portrait series. I’ve been pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, and I’m also excited to start some new still life and landscape pieces that have been in my backlog for a while.
This is the third portrait in my series inspired by the TV show New Girl: “Schmidt” (played by Max Greenfield). He’s one of my favorite characters from the show, which made it especially enjoyable to take my time and focus on capturing his likeness. I’m planning to create at least three more portraits in this series, making it a much smaller body of work than the one I created inspired by The Office.
“Winston Bishop, ” Collage on paper, 7″x5″ Order a print
The other night, I completed the second portrait in my New Girl series: “Winston Bishop” (played by Lamorne Morris). I had a lot of fun working on the colorful pattern of his shirt and enjoyed the overall challenge of tackling another portrait.
Winston is one of my favorite characters from the show, so naturally, I had to create his portrait early on in the series. I’m planning to make at least four more for this collection. Right now, I’m aiming to complete one new collage each month, since my schedule has been pretty hectic lately. Keep an eye out for more New Girl-inspired collages!
“Jessica Day,” Collage on paper, 7″x5″ Order a print
New Girl has always been one of those shows that I can rewatch and still find myself laughing out loud. The characters are so unique and relatable in their own weird ways, and I knew I wanted to capture that in my art. So, I decided to dive into a new portrait series inspired by the show, and I kicked it off with none other than Jessica Day.
Creating this portrait was a bit of an adventure. I used upcycled magazines to piece together the vibrant, quirky essence of Jess. There’s something really satisfying about taking old materials and giving them new life in a way that captures the spirit of a character I’ve enjoyed watching for years. This portrait took some time, but it didn’t feel like a grind—probably because Jess’s infectious energy kept me going.
While I don’t plan on making as many portraits for this series as I did for my The Office collection, I’m excited to see where this journey takes me. I’ve got a few more New Girl characters in mind, and I’m looking forward to bringing them to life with this technique. Stay tuned—there’s more to come!
Bosty recently decided to visit the West Coast for a few days. He’d heard great things about the beaches in Monterey, so he decided to take a look for himself. He spent a good amount of time walking on the beaches, admiring the beautiful ocean.
But sometimes, he needed a break from all that sun, so he also swung by the Monterey Bay Aquarium a couple of times.
He loved taking a look at all the different fish.
Especially some of the creatures that would have scared him if he came face-to-face with them in nature – like this school of jellyfish!
And before he left, he had to stop by the otter exhibit to say “hello.” Otters do look a lot like sea dogs…
For the remainder of the trip, he explored different beaches. Some were sandy, while others were rocky, perfect for tide-pooling. He had so much fun finding crabs and small fish in the puddles of ocean water.
He even got to see sea lions sunbathing on rocks by the ocean.
Overall, Bosty enjoyed exploring a new area in California and getting to see some wildlife – both in an aquarium and in the wild.
“Afternoon in the Park,” Collage on paper, 5″x7″ Order a print
October 16th, 2024 Phillips@THEARC, Washington, DC
I will be running a collage workshop at The Phillips Collection’s THEARC location. The workshop will begin with a presentation on collage, exploring the concept of “painting with paper.” Then, participants will create their own “painting with paper” landscape artworks. All materials will be provided by The Phillips Collection.
“Andrew McMahon,” Collage on paper, 7″x5″ Order a print
Andrew McMahon has been one of my favorite musicians for years. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve put many of his albums on repeat. Even now, as an adult, I continue to enjoy listening to his new and old music, as well as seeing him perform live. I thought it would be great to create a portrait of Andrew since his music has meant a lot to me.
It took me a decent chunk of time to complete this piece, although it wasn’t as much of a struggle as some of my other portraits. I think it would be fun to work on a series of musician portraits, although I might start working on another series inspired by a TV show soon. We shall see…
This weekend I finished the 18th, and last (for now), portrait in my collage series inspired by The Office, “Gabe Lewis” (played by Zach Woods). I may revisit this series again in the future, but for now, I’m putting it aside and turning to something new. It’s been fun tackling so many characters, and I’m happy with how many I was able to complete. This series was definitely a challenge, and I’m happier with some portraits more so than others, but overall, I like how I challenged myself for this one. With my next portraiture series, I definitely want to work harder at being completely happy with every work of art.
Up next? I think I’ll explore making some portraits of musicians before I dive into more portraits inspired by another TV series. And I may alternate between working on a portrait and a collage that can be part of a still life or landscape/cityscape series. To be determined…
When I was a kid, my parents often signed me up for classes at a local art gallery, and just about every year, I took an art class in school. Over the years, I experimented with a variety of mediums – from ceramics to bookbinding, and from painting to charcoal drawing. I was always making something and enjoyed taking classes that introduced me to different techniques and mediums.
In high school, I started exploring the collage medium more. Previously, I had only ever made collages that were more stereotypical – filled with cutout words, phrases, and entire images that created more of a “vision board” look. But in high school, I started exploring mixed media along with magazine cutouts:
I was drawn to how spontaneous the medium felt – how I never knew what fragments of images I’d find when paging through a magazine. However, I still felt a need to draw or make some sort of physical mark on the page since I was so accustomed to making art that way. Later on, I focused on making collages with magazine cutouts that I drew on top of with oil pastel:
Once I reached college, I started to focus primarily on how I could make works of art entirely from magazine cutouts. I was drawn to the challenge of finding all the right colors and textures for a given composition:
Ultimately, I picked collage as my creative medium because, of all the mediums I explored, collage was my favorite. It made sense to focus entirely on collage and really explore that medium since it was something I enjoyed so thoroughly.
And now, I have only made collages for the past several years. Perhaps I will revisit some other mediums at some point, but for now, I enjoy challenging myself by tackling different compositions with collages made entirely from magazine cutouts.
“Erin Hannon,” Collage on paper, 7″x5″ Order a print
I can’t believe I’ve made it all the way to portrait number seventeen in my collage series inspired by The Office. “Erin Hannon” (played by Ellie Kemper) wasn’t the easier portrait to tackle, although I may have my recent travels and half marathon training to blame for that. I’ve noticed that some portraits may be more of a struggle than others, especially when I haven’t been able to dedicate a consistent routine to working on them.
And now, I just have one more portrait left in this series before I pivot and work on a new series. Perhaps I’ll revisit this one to add more portraits of supporting characters, but for now, this series is nearly complete.
The other day I heard from Mrs. Crooks who shared her student art from Class 1 at the Ysgol Gellifor School in Wales, UK. Her students range from ages 3 – 7. They studied my collages as part of their food topic in school where they made their own “painting with paper” collages.
The students used a variety of solid and textured magazine cutouts to make their collages.
Once the students completed their pieces, they covered their pictures with PVA glue.
I really enjoyed taking a look at the variety of colors and subjects the students collaged. They did an excellent job of making these works of art inspired by food, and it’s very impressive that they are such young artists. Collage can be a very challenging medium for beginners since it requires the patience to page through magazines to find the right colors and textures, as well as cutting and layering all the bits of paper.
