Process of Making
Pink Twins
Collage has to be one of my favourite mediums of all time. I feel like I say that about every medium, but I mean it! I find it so relaxing and free of the pressure of making something flawless.
If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll know that I posted about a collage on canvas I made recently, titled Pink Twins.
I thought I’d write a bit about my process of making.
The original canvas looked like this.
I’d started this canvas a few months ago, but life must have gotten in the way, so it remained half-finished. The original inspiration came from an article in Frankie magazine, something about a photographer documenting identical twins that lived in Paris? (Don’t quote me on that, the original article is all cut up now!).
First step was to gather all of the necessary materials: PVA glue (only the cheap stuff here!), a yoghurt container for diluting the glue with water (yoghurt containers are so useful!), plus scissors and a paintbrush (I have a specific glue paintbrush for this).
I have a stack of scrap paper that I’ve ripped out of Frankie magazines over the years – cute patterns, catchy text or just images that appealed to me. Once all the stuff is together, my desk looks something like this:
After that, I put on some good music and start collaging. I decided to make this into a mixed media piece, so there’s a bit of gouache in there. For a while, it evolves pretty naturally.
If you’ve read my first blog post, I reminisced about crayon drawings and watercolour washes (for those two people that don’t know, crayon and oil pastel are water resistant, and when you put a colour wash over the top, you can still see your drawing underneath). I thought, why not try that here?
My two test pages turned out fine.
So, I went for it.
Now this is where it started to go downhill. I’d bought these crayons for an art class I taught a few years ago – cheap, no-brand crayons. You know how chocolate goes all weird and cloudy when it gets old? These crayons did the same thing. And let me just say, the texture was leaving a lot to be desired.
But I persisted with the colour wash.
I didn’t like that, so I tried to salvage it by doing something else I didn’t like.
I just want to take a quick intermission to say that this generally happens with a lot of collages I make.
Up, down, then up again.
Like a rollercoaster.
I messed around for a bit more – my tactic is, look around for what my brain deems as a ‘blank spot’, then fill it with something that fits in with the collage theme.
(Many canvases have been overworked this way).
But, I’m nothing if not optimistic!
This is the finished work!
I’m quite pleased. I love the colour palette, and you can see just enough of the original collage to get the theme.
(Even if it didn’t turn out quite the way I planned, a success nonetheless!)
Keep up with my art journey!
