Cabin Fever Handicraft

Another fun week of collage! I’m finding a better flow now, even though some of the prompts stumped me at first.

“Concrete” was one of those. As usual I had many ideas but couldn’t figure out how to manifest the darn thing. Then, as is my new process, I just let go and let materials inspire me.

I immediately thought of cities and found 2 citiscapes that I blended together. For softness I added the illustration of the girl and the flowers add softness, color and bring her to the foreground.

Day 9 Bottle

This is another favorite. Every bit is one of my own marbled papers and I love how they look on the “shelves”. I’ll play with this idea again for sure.

Day 10 Oblivious

More play with marbled paper.

It’s no masterpiece but it’s the first time I’m using the marbled paper to simulate a path, movement or perspective. An idea I want to explore further.

Day 11 Plant

I was rushed on this morning and grabbed a half finished collage with the corn to continue with. I added the corn-yellow strips and a few other details to call it complete. SImple but I like it.

Day 12 Magnet

I like this one too. Once I found the diagram of magnetism for the background the rest came together in a few minutes.

Day 13 Watermelon

I love this one! I make myself chuckle every time I look at it. I knew I wanted to do another torn paper collage like “toast” so a slice of watermelon seemed perfect.

The watermelon by itself was boring so I searched for a face to put behind it, as if ready to eat it. But instead I found this parachuting lady and instantly the watermelon became a parachute. She needed a background and once again my messy desk had the solution sitting there. I was going to tear up this desert scene to make strips but it became the perfect backdrop instead.

Day 14 Heart

I love ugly food photography, particularly gelatin foods. I’ve had this image for years. The cute portrait of the kid holding flowers seemed a silly addition (I love silly). The “ekg” on top is actually some sort of geology reading and the red strips are player piano roll. I don’t know how much for random I could have gotten on this one.

Now that I’ve stopped over thinking things it’s much easier to find inspiration. And I remind myself these are all just practice. To learn what I like, what kind of shapes and placement I gravitate toward. How many pieces I use, textures and colors. It’s a deepening of my practice but also pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.

Just make art. Every day.