Hey there groovy creative being! :) Welcome to a new month with a new theme, new creative inspirations and new wonderful art techniques for you to explore, yay! :) This month I wanted to share with you my 'paint over collage' technique which is a wonderful step by step process helping you transform a collage into an interesting & beautifully layered painting, like so: Cool no? :) Lemme show you how I did that! From a personal development perspective we are going to be looking at our 'positive connections in life' more on that later in the PDF. Enjoy! Xoxo
(Remember that you can substitute certain supplies with others, you don't always need to buy all the supplies listed! :)) Graphite Pencil Collage papers Face image from magazine Brayer Water-soluble crayons/ pencils or paints White acrylics or white gesso Clear gesso Paintbrushes Washi Tape and/or masking tape Rubber stamps Gel Medium (I used a heavy one, light is fine too) Some acrylics paint A plate or other circular shape to trace around
1. Start by collecting collage elements. You'll need a face from a magazine (or your own face printed out don't use a photo) of approx 2 2.5inches. You'll also want several scraps of paper like book pages, bits of magazine scraps and scrapbooking papers. Choose colours in the colour scheme you're interested in. I went for light tones mixed in with some contrasting/ 'popping' colours. You can also add additional elements like hands/ an arm/ maybe a hat or an animal. Then compose a pleasing to you collage with your collage elements. You do not need to fill up the entire page (though you can if you want to).
2. Once you're happy with your collage composition, glue the pieces down with gel medium. Using an old bank card or other hard-ish tool, scrape the air bubbles from underneath each piece when you glue it down. Do this thoroughly to prevent air bubbles from occurring. 3. Once you are happy with your collage, let it dry thoroughly., then add a layer of clear gesso (if you don't have clear gesso, don't worry, you can still work over your collage, but just remember and be aware that you're working on different types of paper so some parts of your painting will respond differently to your paints than other parts. 4. When your layer of gesso is dry, use a graphite pencil to start drawing details like a body/ butterfly wings/ hair/ a crown etc. For this style of painting I don't focus on 'proportionately' realistic features. I like the quirk & mystery of strange body shapes within this kind of style. Of course, if you prefer to create more realistic/ life-like work then you can do that too.
Now start adding paint/ shading to the face. I used flesh tone acrylics, some crayons & pencils and white highlights with marker pen to create the shading. You can choose to follow the face shape and elements of the previous face quite closely or you can start to change certain things about it. Like in my original face she had her mouth open, but I went over it and closed it. You can also add interesting little doodles like longer eye lashes as star or heart on the cheek etc. The interesting thing about this method is that you'll find that your new face likely will look very different to the original face. I like adjusting the face so that it feels 'mine'. I did the same with the hair, I drew a different hair style over it, made it longer and added a completely different colour over it. The beautiful thing here that happened was that some of the original hair detail (find strands) still 'shone' through and gave it an awesome look! :)
Once you are more or less happy with your face and hair, start creating a layered background. These are the steps I took: 1. Add bits of colour to the background with watercolour crayons/ pencils and-or paints. Activate with water. 2. Yayyyy, it's brayer time! :) Use a blob of white gesso or white acrylics and brayer it over your background. Keep going until you get a nice grungy pullme-push-me effect.
The brayer leaves a beautifully distressed layer behind.
3. I then added a layer of texturised rubber stamping over the brayered layer. 4. Continue to add colour with crayons/ pencils or other water based paints where you feel it's needed. You can add another layer of brayer again if you feel there is too much colour. Continue to add and take away until you're happy with the look of your background.
5. When you are happy with your background, return to the main figure and bring back any details you lost and that you want to add on. 6. Using washi tape and/or masking tape, create harmony by adding some to the 'rule of thirds' division lines.
7. I added a circular shape around my girl like an aura or halo, to emphasise her as a main element. I used a plate to get a precise circle, but you can also hand-draw one. To create a clearer aura/ halo I worked with colour around and inside the circle to distinguish it more clearly from the background.
To finish off the page I enjoy adding quirky, mystical, whimsy doodles and text to the painting (mostly in the body section, though sometimes I add them to the background too).
Text can create a beautiful added layer to your page, you can also write poetically and mysteriously about things in life that are important to you. I mention in the video how at one point I was waiting for another pregnancy and I wanted it to be a girl. So instead of being literal about that, I 'translated' that wish into: 'a princess waiting for a princess' the meaning of that sentence was only known to me and added mystery and whimsy to my painting. How to get to your poetic sentences What I'd like you to do to figure out what kind of words/ sentences to add to your painting is: 1. Take a piece of paper 2. Write down a list of your positive connections in life, these can be people, philosophies, religions, books, films, anything that you deem a positive connection in your life however way you define it. Examples: My connection to my husband is positive for me and him. My connection to NVC (non-violent communication) is very positive as it benefits me and how I communicate with others etc. 3. Choose 3 positive connections from your list that you want to celebrate 4. And then write down for each connection what it brings you (in short words or sentences) 5. After you've got a few short words/ sentences describing what it is that those positive connections bring you, try to create some poetic longer sentences that describe these connections but in more poetic/ mysterious ways. (Scroll down below for examples).
Examples: Some examples of words that work well poetically, metaphorically & symbolically: Rain/ rainbows, stars/ star shine/ river flow/ waves/ oceans/ flowers/ princess/ queen/ dancer/ dancing/ light/ love/ free/ freedom/ the wind/ the breeze. Basically try to think metaphorically when you construct your poetic sentences.
And then you can add your poetic sentences to your page. Ideas where you can add your sentences: around the halo, on the masking tape, around the outer hair line, the neckline, any lines going down her body etc. You can continue to tinker with the background, doodles, adding text etc until your happy with your final page. :) Hope you enjoyed creating it! :) xoox Love Tam x Some more pics here:
Willowing Arts Ltd www.willowing.org Tamara Laporte - 2014