Here’s a collage of one of my favorite Southern cuisines. I usually like my plate of shrimp and grits with bacon bits, but I simplified the look of this one so it would look more appetizing. It’s definitely difficult to do the dish justice in collage form if you add too many bits and pieces of color.
Anyway, for my next collage I may veer off from the still life food series, but we shall see. It all depends on what catches my eye next.
Coffee is definitely one of my favorite still life subjects to collage, but I decided to change things up a bit and throw some breakfast foods into the mix. I think my next couple of pieces will also be food collages, but we shall see. Sometimes, without expecting it, I get inspired to work on a specific subject. That may or may not happen this time. Any way, there will be more collages to be made in this series.
This piece was inspired by a trip to New York City where I enjoyed pastries and coffee in a few fantastic coffee shops. And this is also part of my quest of becoming more confident with still life as the subject matter for my artwork. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a tendency of wanting to make collages of people and animals more than anything else. But by making myself step aside from my usual subject matter, I’m beginning to enjoy tackling different subjects.
Stay tuned for more food art…
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!