I’m always drawn to colorful window displays in bakeries. This collage is inspired by several bakeries I visited on a trip to NYC. I’m thinking that this could be a possible series, since I am a fan of sweets.
My next collage will most likely be another still life. I’m determined to build up my still life portfolio since I have a tendency of focusing mainly on animal portraits. Anyway, I’m off to get started on some more artwork!
A collage of one of my favorite beverages of all time – coffee! I’ve mentioned before that I’m not really a fan of making still life art, but I figure it’s a good exercise to tackle an area that I’m not as familiar with. By focusing on still life objects that I enjoy in real life, I’m hoping to build this area out to other subjects in the next few months.
Anyway, I’m off to get started on a sketch for my next piece!
This is a quick still life study that I completed the other night. As I continue to complete these smaller pieces, I’m going to start exploring more complex compositions. Right now I’m just focusing on practicing still life collages. Hope to create more of these soon.
Still life is definitely my least favorite subject to collage. So I figured, why not explore a still life series? I’m hoping to get more excited about still life as I experiment with different subject matter in the genre. This piece was meant to just be a simple collage that can hopefully get the ball rolling with this new project.
I completed this piece a while ago and then I put a stack of magazines on it and forgot about it. While sifting through magazines as I worked on piecing together another collage, I found this one again. It was only made with coated paper, and for some reason the solid colors didn’t look right. So I went ahead and started cutting out bits and pieces of texture from magazines until the collage looked like the image above. Temporarily losing this work of art helped me in the end – I was able to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and make adjustments that made the collage more colorful.
In other news…did you hear? D.C. felt an earthquake yesterday. I thought it was construction and didn’t think twice, but when folks started evacuating from all the buildings on the street, I decided I should follow suit. It was strange feeling the floor beneath me shaking. Reminds me of the earthquake we had last year – which was much smaller than yesterday’s. Last year, I stayed up until five o’clock in the morning working on a project – felt my chair vibrating and saw my computer monitor shaking, thought I must be hallucinating from sleep deprivation and decided to call it a night and go to sleep. Didn’t realize what had happened until I read the news the next day. Craziness.
This is a simple collage that I put together for an upcoming group exhibition. I’ve been missing in action a little bit these days when it comes to blogging – been a little tied up with a couple of large projects that I’m anxious about completing.
And next month will be another busy month – I’m making a trek to Jasper, Indiana at the end of April for my solo show and day-long workshop. So far it looks like about forty of my pieces will be on display for the exhibit. Yep, I’ve got quite a bit of planning ahead of me but I’m pretty excited about getting everything ready.
Here’s another collage from the coated paper coffee cup series. Coated paper is much thicker than magazine pages, and I can tell a noticeable difference when working with it. With magazine pages, it’s much easier to layer the paper and work on small details. With the coated paper, it’s difficult to create several layers and I often find myself simplifying shadows and highlights. It’s interesting to change up your materials every once in a while.
In other news, I have a couple of rather large projects on my plate at the moment – there’s the children’s book which is taking quite a bit of time and the new education section of my site I’m putting together. The children’s book is taking a while to complete because it is going to consist of about thirty illustrations where the collage image is about 12”x16” – which is the medium size I work in. I’ll also need to work on the layout and edit the storyline I’ve written. The education project will take a while since I’m planning to put together several different lesson plans that are going to be somewhat interactive. So off to work I go!
“Pink Coffee Cup”
Collage on mat board (coated paper)
7″x5″
Since I have focused a lot of time on my children’s book illustrations, I’ve decided to strive to complete a couple small collages every week. That way I can break up my illustration work a bit and continue to explore other subjects and compositions. The piece above is something I completed last night. Instead of working with magazine strips like I usually do, I used coated paper. The paper was pretty thick which forced me to work with fewer strips and it simplified the look of the finished piece. This exercise reminds me that I should start thinking about projects for the workshop I’m running in April. I know that April seems a ways away, although it will get here before I know it…
Happy holidays, everyone! I’ll be out and about during the next few days and won’t have a chance to post until next week. Hope you’ve had a chance to finish your holiday shopping – and that you’re keeping warm! It’s been quite chilly here in DC.
Anyway, I’m off to start a marathon of eating all week long. Hopefully I can get a little exercise in between bites.
I hope everyone had a happy Monday – I’ve been busy working away with record keeping (so yes, it hasn’t been the most exciting Monday ever). I thought I’d share one of my latest pieces that I did for an upcoming exhibition. The show has a theme of words and phrases used in art, so I decided to do a cup of coffee.