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Monday 25 April 2022

Weekends With Jane

Each new lesson for the online workshop that I'm taking comes out on a Wednesday only I'm busy during the week with other things so I've been saving it and then spending my weekends with Jane - the instructor. I don't know her but I feel like I do. She's very direct, straight to the point, and says it like it is and that's how I am also so I really appreciate it, especially as I know it's a way of being that can be undervalued and over criticized. 





The course - Mini Collage - is fabulous. It involves gluing with gel medium and while I am absolutely not a glue (or glitter) girl, I am surviving it. This week's lesson was to make sixty small collages and by the end, I was less covered in glue than at the beginning. Apparently, my glue management skills had advanced - LOL. 






I've always believed that beginners need the best tools possible because the quality of the tool can significantly impact the ability to do the work, which impacts the student's enjoyment, which could have them quitting a good thing. I painted my colours onto cheap copy paper and I won't do that again. When I tried to glue down the first shape, the colour bleed so before using them I had to seal them all with gel medium. If I'd have been making an actual piece, that would have been a tough - and muddy coloured - learning curve. 





I also sealed sixty shapes from lesson two, divided them into piles of twenty along with twenty substrates, and created the collages in three sessions. The shapes were stacked and I worked through them in order responding to the piece and combining it with shapes cut from the other papers. Cutting new secondary shapes often created a left over shape and if I could - which was not always - I used it in the next collage meaning that the next collage had a starting shape plus a leftover, two things to respond to. 





Having something to respond to is a great way to get started and can really help to eliminate over thinking which is something I'm very good at. I can overthink overthinking. Instead, I picked up the shape, glued it down, and worked at getting the next piece and then the next also glued down. To quote Jane... Each collage includes three shapes. Not two, not four, not ‘about’ three. THREE. 3. 




I would guess that all artists think in their primary medium. I know that I think in fabric and thread so while there are only three shapes on the substrate, in my head there are other lines and textures created by layering and stitching these forms. Judging by the samples shown in the workshop description, I am guessing we will be making marks at some point. We'll see. 





While I haven't worked with paper before, I have done small collages with fabric and it was fun to see my familiar shapes appear. One of the students likened them to Inuit or Native American shapes. I also see Japanese forms. I think it's part of my minimalist nature. 





I really enjoy layering and seeing one shape through another. As I worked through the sixty collages, I became aware of familiar compositions, another name for my style. 





My favourite compositional form is tension where there is a focal point and a secondary focal point of almost equal significance. You can see it in these two collages. You can also see wrinkles and a lack of smoothness to the gluing. This was another flaw of the copy paper. It was so thin that the surface rubbed off if I tried to smooth it for too long and it easily wrinkled. Jane calls this squeegee-ing the shape. My squeegee needs work. 





All of the earlier collages were in the first forty. This one was in the last twenty. By then, I was really pushing the definition of shape to create additional lines and shapes and implied lines and shapes. If I could cut it in one continuous line, it was a shape. That's one of the benefits of working in series. If you are willing to engage, it will grow your work.

This was the absolute best assignment I have done in any course that I can remember in a really long time. I thoroughly enjoyed it and celebrated not only what I saw myself learning but what I brought with me from my tool box of the past forty plus years. There is something delightful about being a mature artist. 


 


My grand-puppy is here for the week. She didn't understand at all why I couldn't pat her every time I walked a mini collage across the room to dry - with glue covered hands. On Saturday, she lay widthwise which made it really hard to get around her. Sunday, she lay lengthwise which was only slightly better. Moving the last batch was easier. She was exhausted from our long walk in the warm sunshine and went to her blanket to have a nap. I have been overindulging in just a little too much comfort food in the form of frozen cappuccino yogurt so the long walks are good for both of us. 

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - a creatively growing assignment

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