Yesterday, I painted some papers for work , which was a fun activity in itself. And in that post I said I’ll show you how to use that paper to make a collage. I’ll be honest when I got into the studio this morning, I didn’t feel like doing this, I wanted to draw simple naive drawings with a brush, I’ll save that for Monday.
What I did do is to bring some of that simple naive sensibility into today’s work, by limiting the number of pieces I used in the collage.
That was a good way to transmutate an urge.
Obviously made by hand
I was reading an article by an editor about how the suspicion of Ai in the writers he commissioned made him pull the articles. I read another thing that said, just because Ai can make a poster for you, it doesn’t make you a graphic designer. And just at this very moment dear reader I remember a thought I had 20 years ago, when more and more people were abandoning drawing skills for digital image creation… ‘Good’ I thought.
That means my ability to draw and work with my hands would become rarer.
One good thing about collage is it’s obviously made by hand, pair that with painted paper and you have the fingerprints of humanity all over it. So much of collage has to do with you being in a physical space and that just creates a uniqueness that is hard to replicate.
Where did the paper come from, what about the paint, the size of your work area… all this influenced the final simple form.
I believe that in the next couple of years at least there is going to be a premium for things that are obviously made by hand.
TEN MINUTE ARTIST PROMPT
How to make a simple collage
Look at the painted texture and try to see the image you want to create. Do you see the gorilla in the blotches.
Cut out the gorilla shape from the blotches, and use additional blotches for some details. I managed to do this with 4 pieces. Head shoulder and arms, Torso, hind legs, face
Then put it all together.
It probably looks like magic putting together 4 pieces of paper and having them look like a gorilla, if there was indeed any magic it happened 3 days ago when I drew 8 one minute gorilla sketches, with zero thoughts of making a gorilla collage. Those drawings formed an education, that I drew from today when making decisions about the design of today’s gorilla. Here’s what I remember from my studies: the gorillas head looks rises up as a mountain/you can de-emphasise the back legs/ the torso sags and there is a reason it’s called a silverback gorilla/
I finished it by drawing details in procreate.
Share yours in the gallery!
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I love this so much! a much needed Friday art activity for myself (and maybe even with my kids later)