Snow Time Equals Art Time

 With this assignment of 50 collages in 2 weeks I have learned a lot about myself and my art making process.  I need a good amount of time before my ideas get rolling.  Which was the point, really, of having to do so many collages.  If we were able to stop at 10, well, the results would have been awful.  For me at least--can't speak for my other classmates.  Or what would have probably happened is that I would have made 10, hated them, made 10 more, hated them and then did another 10 and so on.  Luckily I have been stuck in the house for the last 2 days because of the snow/ice storm and so I have been able to focus, focus, focus.

 It wasn't until around #32 that I really started rolling in ideas.  That was about the time I picked up paint as well.   I played a bit with resists as well.  It made the pieces so much more interesting.

It was also more successful for me to keep to a limited palette for the majority of the time.  Less options mean more thought into what you put down on paper.  

Three days ago I broke down and went out and bought a proper cutting mat and my cutouts improve sharply from that point on. 

Tips I have figured out with collage:
-Have sharp blades.

-Buy a fancy cutting mat.

-Experiment with lots of different kinds of glue.

-Try tearing the papers instead of just cutting a sharp edge. 

-Use stiff backings so they don't warp and roll up (like mine did).

-Photocopiers can be your best friend.  I have a lot of foreign money but didn't want to cut it up so I photocopied it.

-Use non obvious collage materials.  Meaning, I hated the collages that I used magazines or "scrapbooking" papers on.  They looked too crafty and cheap. 

-Be prepared to hate a lot of what you do and chalk them up to samples and trials.  Don't use your favorite papers or unique images until you have a grasp of what you want to do with them.  That's where the photocopier helps too.

This one is my favorite.  Those brown forms cut from a dress pattern are in the shape of nuclear reactor cooling towers.  The cards refer to humans gambling with nuclear energy.  A little obvious, but I am not too good with super deep or dark interpretations.

I also liked this one and think it works with the one above.  The spiral on the side is DNA.

For those of you that remember your high school science, this is a diagram of fission.  The collages weren't all science based, but my favorite ones tended to be.

The entire collection.  You can see about 2/3's of the way is when I really started having fun.  The last 15 I did more or less simultaneously.  

Now I have to make a nicer, quality collage diptych for the next project.  Yikes, only tomorrow to make it, going to put my thinking cap on tonight!