Collage ~ Vertical Landscapes

The past several weeks I've been following two artists I discovered on Pinterest. One artist works in collage and she has inspired me to create these two landscapes. I love the look of long narrow paintings, either horizontal or vertical but the idea of a narrow vertical landscape is so intriguing to me. It gives me the chance to practice combining different papers, colors and textures without using up too much material.

My new quest this month was learning to stain tissue paper. It's tricky because tissue paper disintegrates when it gets wet. I found a video showing the entire process but I can't find it anywhere at the moment. If I can't locate the video at some point I'll try to explain the technique in a later post. It's really worth the effort. I used some in both of these collages. I think you'll be able to spot it.

Abstract Collage ~ one pass/one fail

And after aging. I love this effect when done right. It can go 'dirty' real fast. A gentle hand is required.

Before aging

This failed when I was far too aggressive with the black acrylic painting when I began toning/aging this one. I am still a little confused by the areas that seemed to grab that paint, though. I had a few coats of gel gloss medium down to protect but it wasn't entirely successful. I 'll be more cautious next time.

In the spirit of keeping myself honest I'm posting one collage I like and another which I do not. Sadly, one failed miserably. Of course every fail must be seen as a learning opportunity.

I'm realizing that there is much to learn about creating abstract art. Abstracts are from the artists' imagination for the most part. They can be informed(inspired) by something in the real world, though. Personally I need a jumping off point to get me started so this is good news. However I'm not at that point yet. I'm still trying to conquer composition. Another goal of mine is to become a better colorist, or any kind of colorist at all. I carry around Quillers' color wheel like my favorite blanket. But I digress....

Good Boys ~ mixed media

This is my latest contribution to the art world and much fun was had during the process. Inspired by one of Christine C's photos on PMP, I began by making a continuous line drawing of three of the dogs in the photo. I traced them separately onto tracing paper so I could play with the composition. I then prepped watercolor paper by gluing down a few layers of stamped tissue paper. I wanted a vibrant orange background but the paint had to be transparent. I accomplished that by laying down a coat of gel gloss medium. When it was dry I painted the entire surface with orange alcohol ink. The center dog is a dalmatian and I wanted his spots to have lovely soft edges, just like watercolor applied wet into wet. I solved that issue by gluing more tissue paper down on the fur areas, then dropping in some black watercolor while the glue was still quite wet. Tada!