I found the book Collage Lab by Bee Shay. I've always enjoyed looking at good collage work, but have never attempted it myself and find it intimidating. It's easy to just glue junk to a surface, but hard to make it look thoughtfully composed. In the introduction, the author notes that she found herself fighting her long-time original skill sets in a struggle to learn new ways to express her artistic self. Heck, I'd take just having a good long-time skill set! The book is filled with labs that can be done in any order and encourages exploring and experimenting with materials and techniques and "is about getting your hands moving and getting your head out of the way." Just what I need! As I've expressed many times before, I find it frustrating to sit in a studio surrounded by so many art-making materials with a blank brain and an empty hand. I needed a teeny, tiny nudge that meant getting my hands dirty and just playing with a single baby step to get me moving ahead and try to develop a new set of skills without an end project in mind.
The first step involved creating a basic gesso surface on watercolor paper, tinting the gesso just a bit with a pale acrylic so I could see what I was doing. I didn't create any masterpiece, but that was the fun in this play day. No pressure! I did appreciate having prompts to follow and asking myself the questions about what worked, what didn't work, what happens when multiple layers of gesso are applied, what tools/items can be used to manipulate the surface...it was very relaxing.
This is what I ended up with. I used a rubber stamp in the yellow one, the end of the paintbrush handle in the pink one, and a shim that had been nicked on the edges for texture. I was inspired enough to just goof off with the extra piece of watercolor paper I had left and play with watercolor pencils and liquid acrylics.
While I have a few errands to run tomorrow, I should be able to find the time for another one of the gesso labs.
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