Back to Process

I haven't been doing a lot of collage work that I plan to offer for sale, but I thought you might still be interested in hearing how I made one of my recent pieces that I have hanging in a small show.

This piece is called "What Are You Looking At?" and it's one that I like quite a lot.  

As always I start with a more or less blank canvas, this one has been covered with a goldish-black paper that I quite like.  It's wrinkly but stretchable and has a nice texture to it.  Though it's going to get covered up, it's good to know that good paper forms the foundation of this piece.

I then start adding things.  As I said, I tend now to cover up the foundation.  My reason for including the paper is to make sure the sides of the canvas are covered.  Lately I've been using wider edged canvases that I don't frame and I really dislike seeing blank white canvas sides on a piece.

 I really enjoy the process of moving things around and picking and choosing what images I want to use as the focal point.  At first I wanted to use a character I haven't worked with for a while

I love this guy, but I decided to once again go with a female character

I chose this one because I love the expression her face, plus there's a hint of sensuality with the clothing a bit low cut.  Usually my ladies are dressed to a T, but there's just something about this woman that I love.

After deciding on which character to use, I decide on additional elements to add such as this key

And I make sure the sides are covered

And this is the piece completed, hanging in the gallery.  One thing I'd done was to lightly color in the woman's cheeks with a pink watercolor pencil.  It's not at all obvious but I like the hint of pink, and I think I might do this again, color in parts of the character's image.

 I hope you like this piece, and that you've enjoyed this journey through my creating a collage

later
lin