Alice adventure continues

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind and I have been busy preparing projects to deliver at local schools for their art weeks - however there is always time for a bit of collage work.

I use collage as a method of layering my thoughts and ideas as well as pieces of paper, fabric, glue and paint. With each piece of paper I add their is a history and emotion that comes with the selected material - and you the viewer add yet another layer of meaning to the piece. The gathering of materials itself is a historical process and reveal quite a lot about the life of the artist - almost their own biographies or historical artifacts. As an artists I am often asking friends and family to collect papers and objects for me that I use in my work. It's that second life that intrigues me, finding beauty in something that has been discarded or using simple scraps to create something beautiful and new.

The pieces pictured below continue my sketchbook theme of Alice in Wonderland but also link in with images of romance and forbidden love. I have tried to use the collage to express the emotions love brings, excitement, confusion, the sense of falling, vulnerability, warmth etc etc. I think I may make a collagraph of "And we dreamed until the morning light" exploring the use of texture and mark making. I'll blog and let you know how it goes.

 "And we dreamed until the morning light"

 Notice the little door in this picture, it has a sliding picture inside that

changes when you pull the butterfly at the top.

"What a curious feeling"

Sketch it, cut it,stick it, glue it!

Paper is an amazing medium that you can use to create fantastic pieces of art work. The versitility of paper has no bounds, it can be drawn on, painted on, cut, ripped, folded, rolled, textured, sculpted and the list goes on. Recently I have spent alot of time investigating paper craft, collage and paper engineering techniques that I can use in my practice. I spend alot of time building sketchbooks and pull ideas from these to create my art - which does not alway result in a 2D piece of work. Working in collage provides me with the fliexibility of changing compostions, colour schemes and focal points without having to paintout or start over.

Below are three pieces I have worked on recently.

Sliding mechanism "Whats the use of a book..."

Paper collage

 Pop up "... pretending to be two people

Paper collage

Bursting Iris folded star " oh my poor little feet

Pencil, crayon and collage