Rounding up a stack of old NG magazines was our first step. Then we tore out the front sections and back sections leaving the good photo pages in the middle...which we drizzled with Citra Solv....closed them up and let them marinate. It is surprising what you find when you start opening up the pages...sometimes you get great looking bubbles and others it seems nothing at all happened. Some magazines worked better than others but by the middle of the day we were getting some awesome results using stencils and wiping out areas.
I love it best when you can still see a face of part of an animal peeking through the haze of running colors. These are the papers I used in creating the Dancing Pears that are on my home page. They are subtle yet very compelling.
Our experiment of the day was making leaf skeletons ..we had directions and all the materials but what we got was a pot of cooked leaves that looked like green mush. I will admit that I was so involved with my City Solv that I did little to help Kathy with the cooking of the leaves ...we may try again if we can figure out where we went wrong.
Our first session was spent wading up newspaper and using wire to create bird like shapes. five hours went by pretty fast and we were not done sooo..we had homework! I spent many hours in my studio completing my three little birds so I would be ready for the decorating phase.
We gathered again a few weeks later to add color. I had painted my birds black and added accent colors with our special papers...the other two ladies completely covered their birds in collage papers. We added hats, necklaces, and sparkly eyes..pantaloons and neck pieces....yarns were wound around legs...it was a very fun day!
Helen's Originals showcases abstract acrylic mixed media, printmaking with monotypes, dry point and gyotaku, figurative collage, and informative blog entries.
